This is our fourth iteration of Monthly Discoveries, a series in which the Welcome team compiles and curates creativity that caught our eye this month. (Paid subs can see past discoveries here, here, and here.)

As always, our May Discoveries spanned a wide spectrum: long-lost witch house tracks, Hello Kitty installations in a cathedral built in 1096, face tattoos of micro-brands, aluminum foil rats, slime-covered dolphin-human hybrids, fox-collar bombers, oil-painted highway hallucinations, mysterious leather furniture, and much more.

These lists are hard-won at the cost of countless screentime hours, so we hope you find something worthwhile in the selection. Happy discovering.

Cute but Psycho by Andrej Bestak and Anja Leko

Andrej Beštak and Anja Leko are the Croatian artist duo behind a bizarre human-dolphin hybrid sculpture. Eternally coated in a slick layer of wet-looking slime, the dolphin bares its jagged teeth while a lock of sleek black hair falls across its face, almost covering one eye. According to the accompanying text, the piece functions as a commentary on looksmaxxing culture, the endless pursuit of shinier hair, a perfect smile, and increasingly hollow cheekbones. One particularly memorable line from the description reads: “Who smiles all the time? Only weirdoes and dolphins.”

Close Proximity by Tim Whelan

LA-based artist Tim Whelan is an illustrator and graphic designer whose diverse practice includes digital illustration, calligraphy, quick sketches, analog work, graphic design, and motion graphics. His latest painting depicts a scene that feels as though it could have been lifted straight from the newest season of Euphoria: a paranoid man with oversized, anime-esque eyes lies on a floral couch, tightly embracing his blonde lover while clutching a gun in his hand. In the comments, Whelan cites photographer Stephen Shore, the iconic 1970s chronicler of American life whose colorful images transformed everyday banality into something unique and coursing with life.

Red Dragon by Salem

SALEM, who has not released music since 2020’s Fires in Heaven, dropped Red Dragon, a project compiling 31 tracks that had never been officially released on streaming. There is some controversy with the band’s former vocalist Heather, who allegedly did not clear her vocals. SALEM and Supreme also dropped a small collection this month featuring New Era snapbacks, half-zip stadium jackets, zip-up hooded sweatshirts, rhinestone-studded graphic tees, and hospital grippy socks.

Tattoos by Hector Gordo Peña

Hector Gordo Peña is a tattoo artist from Houston, Texas. His newest face tattoo creation is a dense cluster of seemingly unrelated, colorful micro-designs: half of a Chicago Bulls logo, Hello Kitty holding a Glock, an Ace of Spades, the Freemason emblem, Ace Hardware, Fortnite V-Bucks, Chick-fil-A, a honey dipper, the Trix Rabbit, a king bee, Valium, a Rolex crown, the old OxyContin logo, a hen, and several others. The tattoo is, somewhat surprisingly, pretty hard. It’s also exceptionally well executed, with intricate detailing that holds up despite the tiny scale of each logo. Peña later posted another video showing the man returning to add more tattoos to the left side of his face. The new work is only briefly visible, but Peña promised to send over a better photo once the mysterious man (who Peña said in the comments is a crackhead) makes his return.

“The Light Comes from All Sides” by Lily Bunney

London-based artist Bunney conducted workshops with two local schools to create a curtain of strung beads resembling Hello Kitty inside of Norwich Cathedral (built in 1096), intended as a contemporary reinterpretation of stained-glass windows. The beaded curtain employs a pointillist technique rooted in a 19th-century color theory that explores how the human eye processes light, with thousands of individual beads visually blending together to create an effect similar to mixed paint. The works are on view through October.

Lourdes’s fox bombers by Noah Lugh Brown

Created by designer Noah Lugh Brown, the Lourdes’s Fox Bomber reimagines the classic 1950s American MA-1 bomber silhouette. It comes in two traditional colorways, army green and black, with a real fox draped around the collar. (The product description notes: “All foxes vary in color.”) Brown has created custom pieces for Playboi Carti and 2hollis in recent years, including a custom white stretch-lamb zip hoodie for Carti and a white Napoleon-style jacket-and-pants set for 2hollis.

The Cats and the Rats by Dean Millen

This month, Millen showcased a handful of the aluminum foil sculptures at MoMA PS1. Our favorite is titled, “The Cats and the Rats”, a collection of sculptures depicting two of NYC’s most ubiquitous street creatures. Millen’s love for creating aluminum foil creatures dates back to when he was 4 years old, where he created his own toys after his father took away his store-bought ones.

Thankful Carts by Jessica Song

NYC based artist Jessica Song posted an image of a minor design detail on the shopping carts at Home Depot: a cursive calligraphy “Thankful” on the handle. The design accent resonated with us. Striking in its simplicity, and remarkably ignored by most visitors, it’s an excellent example of quality design that goes unnoticed in public settings, which is something we’re very interested in. This month, at NYC Design Week, Song presented these simple yet provocative maple wood clocks, which replicate the texture of a malleable parchment paper, turning like the page of a book.

Cosmic Theater by Bella Luz

Bella Luz’s angelic works are soft, luminous, and uncluttered. “Cosmic Theater”, a self-portrait and perhaps our favorite of her works, depicts Luz lying down as sunlight glows through her bedsheets. Upon closer inspection, viewers can discover three miniature oases tucked within the scene, each representing a different biome: sea, forest, and waterfall. A throughline across her practice is a dreamlike translucency that blends and juxtaposes textures. Like dreams themselves, her images resist clearly defined boundaries and coherent logic, allowing disparate elements to coexist in harmony.

“R.I.P Peace” music video by Liim

Cosigned by Tyler, the Creator last year, who described his music as “a cross between Stereolab and Max B. That’s not even half of it,” Liim is a Brooklyn-based rapper who recently wrapped up a stint opening for Freddie Gibbs on tour. His track “R.I.P Peace,” accompanied by a video directed by 900DKID, has been blowing up, with the video in particular propelling the song’s popularity. The video pays homage to “Champagne Coast”:, the iconic music video by Blood Orange that drew inspiration from a blend of late-20th-century interior design catalogs, the work of Ed Ruscha, and early-2000s virtual reality aesthetics. Director Wollens reportedly spent hours scanning interior design clippings at the library to construct the video’s psychedelic, collage-like set.

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Today’s Important Headlines

Martin Margiela is auctioning off his personal archive

More than 200 pieces from Martin Margiela’s private archive will head to auction in Paris this July, including garments, prototypes, sketches, personal objects, and pieces from his Hermès era between 1997 and 2003. The auction is especially significant given Margiela’s longstanding commitment to anonymity and his extreme selectiveness regarding the handling of his personal archives. Among the lots are deeply mythologized artifacts like Margiela’s personal white Blouse Blanche studio coat, graffiti-covered Tabi boots, runway veils, and perhaps most iconically, his 1988 rotary desk phone, one of the earliest examples of his signature whitewashed paint technique. Margiela’s previous archive auction in 2025 brought in €1.89 million, reportedly the highest total ever realized for a fashion auction in Paris. The upcoming sale will take place at a secret location set to be revealed in June.

The “Enhanced Games” hosted a pro-PED Olympics

The controversial “Enhanced Games,” a Summer Olympics competitor where athletes are permitted to compete with performance-enhancing drugs, took place over Memorial Day weekend in Las Vegas. Around 40 athletes competed across swimming, track, weightlifting, and strongman events, including several former Olympians. $1 million bonuses were awarded for breaking world records. Contrary to expectations, only one world record was broken at the Enhanced Games: Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev swam the 50-meter freestyle 0.07 seconds faster than the official mark.

Demna creative directed a new Gucci museum

Gucci unveiled Gucci Storia in Florence, a sprawling multi-floor exhibition housed inside the historic Palazzo della Mercanzia that showcases the brand’s archive in a modern presentation creatively directed by Demna. The exhibition is divided into eight immersive sections, each distinct in display format and experience. The space also includes an exclusive boutique offering one-of-one pieces, as well as a Michelin-star restaurant. The museum aligns with a broader trend of heritage brands creating immersive experiences showcasing their history. In other Gucci news, the house officially entered Formula 1 this week, launching a new Gucci Racing division.

Inside the USA’s biggest vintage fair

Held this past weekend outside of Boston, the Brimfield Antique Flea Market is widely considered the largest and most interesting outdoor vintage fair in the U.S. More than 5,000 vendors set up shop, and collectors, stylists, and dealers from across the U.S., Japan, and Europe traveling in to source anything from early 20th-century workwear and military surplus, to true vintage tees and Americana artifacts. The fair has long been a destination for Japanese buyers, driven by Japan’s longstanding fascination with American workwear and heritage clothing. The event was one of Brimfield’s three massive six-day markets which are held annually in May, July, and September.

Pocket tissues are the newest niche collector trend in China

On rednote, users have begun collecting #paź or pocket tissue packs and commodifying them: hunting down limited edition tissue packs and storing them in binders or boxes as collectibles. By collecting packs featuring designs ranging from past Chinese leaders to cartoon animals, users are turning an everyday object into a whimsical collectible.

The Roundups

Music Releases

• ear released their debut album Rumspringa

• Blood Orange dropped “Essex_Honey.mp3”

• Chanel Beads came out with a single “Dust In The Wind”

• Teezus & Protect released a track “BE WITH THEM”

• Freddie Gibbs dropped his new EP “RBT”

• The Twins released their new EP “There&Back”

• Future and Tyla officially released “Game Time,” the anthem for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Product Drops

• Soup646’s 1960s-inspired canvas shorts

• Multiple increasingly eccentric Vans releases including the Ibiza pack and the upcoming Lil Uzi Vert collaboration

• Young Thug’s SP5DER grape soda

• Curves by Sean Brown tote bags

• the Corodama lyric speaker that displays synchronized lyrics in real time

• Jonathan Anderson’s surreal new Dior bags

• Oree NYC’s ultra-limited made-to-order boots

• Empty Behavior’s anime-eye ballet flats

• Marten Anderson’s sculptural lamps;

• Weekly archival vintage drops from Twofold LA (every Saturday).

Fashion Campaigns

• Balenciaga released two campaigns: one directed by us, and the other a campaign starring Sarah Pidgeon and written by Past Lives director Celine Song, with teaser visuals by Lola Dement Myers

• Jacquemus unveiled a new campaign starring Pamela Anderson

• Christian Louboutin introduced a garden-inspired accessories and footwear collection filled with floral textures and botanical detailing

Exhibits To See

• Owen Douglass’s “MEGA-Bliss5000” exhibition in the UK

• Nick Doyle’s denim-focused “Collective Hallucinations” exhibition at Brooklyn Rail

• Hellstar artist Miles Franklin’s first solo exhibition at age 21

• Paris street art exhibition “Beyond the Streets: Les Légendes du Graffiti et du Street Art”

• “Gothic by Design: The Dawn of Architectural Draftsmanship” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)

Classifieds

Exciting opportunities, employment and otherwise

less ordinary studio — Graphic Designer (Remote)

Remote graphic design role supporting upcoming creative projects across print and digital media. Responsibilities include collaborating on visual design work with a focus on print media and broader creative development. Ideal candidate has strong graphic design sensibilities and experience working across print-focused design projects.
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Field of Play Gallery — Summer Two-Person Show Open Call (Brooklyn, NY)

Open call for artists and collectives working across all mediums to participate in a two-person exhibition at Field of Play Gallery’s new Gowanus location. Responsibilities include submitting exhibition proposals and portfolio materials for consideration within the 2026 summer exhibition program. Ideal candidate is an emerging or established artist interested in collaborative contemporary exhibition environments.
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MINIFALDA — Creative Intern (Berlin, Germany)

Creative internship supporting content creation, concept development, and digital storytelling within a Berlin-based second-hand fashion store. Responsibilities include creating TikTok and Instagram content, developing visual concepts, and translating trends into creative ideas across photo and video formats. Ideal candidate is trend-aware, proactive, visually strong, and familiar with tools like CapCut, Adobe Creative Suite, or Canva.
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The internet is an infinite archive of design, art, and culture, but we all see the same narrow slice of it. We’re on the same few platforms, subject to slight variations of the same algorithm, seeing the same references, again and again. Differentiating personal taste is hard when you share an aesthetic diet with everyone else.

The coffee table book today, therefore, is not an antique interest item, or a performative decoration, but one of the few remaining ways to discover inspiring creativity outside of algorithmic channels, develop unique taste, and dive beneath the surface of cultural topics.

So we’ve curated 30 of our favorites. Their rarity and popularity ranges, from foundational staples to deep cuts. They feature names you know (Nan Goldin, Dash Snow, Yung Lean, Gunner Stahl) and many you don’t. From mythologized magazines, to out of print monographs, to personal anthologies, every book on this list has something to offer. We hope you find it.

Some of the imagery the follows is explicit. Reader discretion advised.

WAR Magazine by Yung Lean

Released in three editions and featuring photographs from 2013, Yung Lean’s WAR magazine documents the period when Lean, Bladee, and the Sad Boys were in Miami recording Lean’s sophomore album Warlord. Fresh off their first U.S. tour, it was both an iconic and dark era for the group, reflective of sudden success and new money. The photos depict a hotel-room lifestyle rife with double cups of lean, police encounters, and a pharmacy’s worth of drugs. This period was also marked by the tragic passing of their close friend Barron Machat, who the magazine is made out in honor of. One image of Lean smoking while covered in mud would later become the back cover for the Warlord vinyl. To understand this era more deeply, watch the excellent Noisey documentary In My Head.

Google Volume 1 by Felix Heyes and Ben West

Google Volume 1, published in 2013, is a visual time capsule that freezes a very specific yet fundamental component of the internet: every Google image search result for all 21,110 words found in the Oxford English Pocket Dictionary. The result is an eclectic visual diary of the internet’s more primitive era, before corporate interests came to dominate the web. There is no accompanying text for the images, leaving readers to parse through the pages and make their own educated guesses about which word each image corresponds to. Google Volume 2, published exactly ten years later, uses the same 21,110 words to tell the story of 2023’s visual culture. Examined side by side, the two books reveal the ways the internet has evolved over time in ways words alone cannot fully capture.

Flesh Love by Photographer Hal

Initially beginning as a set of 72 photographs known as Flesh Love, photographer Hal has since taken hundreds of photographs of couples collapsing into each other inside vacuum-sealed bags, forming what appears to be one singular being. Hal’s work has always been fixated on motifs of love, intimacy, and the challenges relationships take on, with his portraits gradually bringing couples physically closer together until they were vacuum-sealed to the point of being unable to breathe for several seconds. The project later expanded through Flesh Love Returns and Flesh Love All, broadening its subjects beyond couples to include families and larger communities.

Conspiratorial Design: Information design for the bigger picture by Carlo Bramanti

Dutch designer Carlo Bramanti proposes that design and conspiracy theories, typically understood as unrelated or even opposing systems, in fact operate through similar intentions and parallel modes of representation. He argues that the primary function of design is to produce awareness, a process that can also be understood as awakening, which he identifies as the underlying aim of conspiracy theories as well. Bramanti’s book unfolds almost like a thesis paper, a rigorous and deeply researched exploration of this radical proposition, written with remarkable clarity and patience. Alongside the text are roughly a hundred diagrams, charts, visualizations, and other graphic studies that extend the argument visually, turning the publication itself into both an analytical framework and a designed object.

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible by Sophie Lovell

German designer Dieter Rams is one of the most influential product designers of the twentieth century, and his work is foundational for anyone interested in understanding contemporary industrial design. With a foreword by Apple’s former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, As Little Design as Possible takes readers through hundreds of Rams’ designs for Braun and Vitsœ, as well as his architectural work and a broader view of his life, all through the lens of what sustainable design means via his “Ten Principles.” Some of his most celebrated designs include Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System, Braun ET66 Calculator, and the Braun Pocket Radio.

Digipop by Karim Rashid

Karim Rashid is one of the central creative minds behind the 00s transition away from rigid modernism towards the curvaceous and colorful ‘blobism’ that would define digital design in that era. Digipop catalogues much of this pioneering design work. Divided into the thematic sections Symbolik, Icons, Graphiks, Optikal, and Infostethiks, the book is a notable time capsule that offers a window into the past, and unveils a keystone aesthetic still in heavy reference circulation today.

The Illustrated Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation by Johnny Hollywood

Kubark’s Counterintelligence Interrogation is a once-classified 1963 CIA manual exploring the psychological interrogation tactics controversially deployed by intelligence agencies during the Cold War. The manual resurfaced in 1996 following Congressional investigations and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Johnny Hollywood’s version of the book is a 230-page reissue featuring 34 of his red anime/hentai-inspired illustrations, creating a stark contrast with the manual’s heavy subject matter. It’s an extremely obscure book that is difficult to find much information about online other than Johnny Hollywood’s Instagram. We came across it in a dark used bookstore in Brooklyn.

The Best of Nest: Celebrating the Extraordinary Interiors from Nest Magazine by Todd Oldham and Joe Holtzmand

Todd Oldham’s greatest-hits compilation of the cult interior design magazine Nest chronologically curates 26 of the publication’s standout issues from 1997 to 2004. Nest distinguished itself from the predictably beautiful yet ultimately homogeneous world of late 20th-century interior design magazines by focusing on the most esoteric and bizarre living spaces imaginable. In keeping with the DIY spirit of the original issues, the book recreates Nest’s signature cut-outs, foils, and glitter detailing. The interiors range from overwhelmingly lavish to simple and inventive, spanning the homes of artists like Julian Schnabel and John Waters to prison cells in a women’s prison in New Mexico.

The Other Side by Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin’s documentation of the creative underground, fringe queer communities, and misfits of the art world made her one of the most influential photographers of her generation. Her practice took shape in 1970s Boston, where she documented the drag queens and transgender women who made up much of her social circle. This body of work became The Other Side, her first published photobook and a landmark project that brought voyeurism, gender fluidity and queer self-expression into the public consciousness long before either was accepted by mainstream society. Many of her muses and collaborators were affected by the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, making the archive a reflection on a devastated generation. After The Other Side was published in 1993, Goldin continued traveling and documenting similar subcultures across New York (where she published her better-known work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency) as well as Berlin, Bangkok, and beyond, expanding her intimate style of portraiture into a global chronicle of outsider life.

Sylvia by Angela Hill

Sylvia by Angela Hill, a fashion photographer whose serene, minimalist approach attracted the attention of Dover Street Market and Gosha Rubchinskiy, centers on a single subject: a girl named Sylvia Mann, photographed between the ages of 11 and 18.The book is some of Hill’s best work, and perfectly captures her photographic philosophy: avoid large-scale teams or elaborate pre-planning, find the intimacy of her subjects’ aesthetic truth, from their fashion sensibilities to the objects that fill their bedrooms. Viewers are left with a sense of mystery: Who is this girl? Why am I jealous of her beautiful life? Today, Hill runs and curates IDEA in Soho, London, one of the most compelling contemporary bookstores. If you like Sylvia, check out Edith by her as well.

Mies van der Rohe: Architecture and Design in Stuttgart, Barcelona and Brno by Otakar Macel

Regarded as one of the pioneers of modern architecture, German designer Mies van der Rohe’s design language feels tangential to that of Rams, sharing qualities that remain highly relevant to contemporary design in 2026, most notably in the renewed popularity of Wassily chairs and a broader movement toward curved, organic forms and steel. Van der Rohe was also the last director of the Bauhaus school of architecture, guided by the philosophies of “Less is more” and “God is in the details.” His most famous works include modern classics such as the Barcelona and Brno chairs, which continue to be widely replicated today.

TRISHA PAYTAS issue of King Kong Issue 16

Trisha Paytas is an omnipresent force of internet culture. From dominating YouTube, to appearing in Modern Family, music videos by Amy Winehouse and Eminem, and this season of Euphoria, Paytas’s rare cover issue for King Kong magazine perfectly captures the absurd, quintessentially American spirit of the unlikely icon. The interview contains a number of great quotes, such as: “In America anyone and everyone is famous”; “Followers are worth more than dollars”; “I’m kind of fat and love to eat too many calories. And I love it. I think that’s pretty American.” The cover was shot by LA photographer and creative director Chessa Subbiondo.

Studio 54 by Tod Papageorge

Tod Papageorge’s photo collection offering a glimpse inside New York’s most infamous disco club, Studio 54, remains one of the most celebrated works of NYC party photography. The collection belongs in conversation with those Larry Fink, and Mary Ellen Mark, and documents the glitz and hedonism of 1970s New York. Papageorge’s images capture the fine line between euphoric decadence and glamorous collapse, seen through tangled bodies of movie stars, musicians, politicians, and people from every walk of life, a true testament to the spirit of New York that people are still chasing to this day.

Freewheeling Francis by Francis Delacroix

Described as “the bible of Francis Delacroix’s body of work—and of his own personal religion,” Delacroix’s book is a collection of more than one hundred portraits by the photographer. Documenting his friends and the creative scenes he has been involved with over the past decade, the book focuses on the fading glamour of rock culture across Paris, New York, Rome, and Milan. It features figures like Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dare, legendary NYC filmmaker Richard Kern, and many more. The book’s construction is also highly unique: the 200-copy run was printed on lightweight 55gsm newspaper stock, with each book wrapped in a burlap sack-like fabric. It also contains a foreword by alt-lit writer Meg Superstar Princess. Only five copies remain on his site.

Vice Dos and Don’ts: 10 Years of VICE Magazine’s Street Fashion Critiques by Vice

No publication had as much of an influence on the urban hipsters of the 2000s and 2010s as Vice Magazine, and few offerings within Vice were consequential as “Dos and Don’ts,” a recurring series of style scripture and behavioral standards for a generation that was equally interested in standing out and fitting in. This compilation assembles a decade of this guidance in a single visual compendium. Much of the wisdom still applies. Readers of this also tend to like The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.

Shishi Ruirui by Shintaro Kago

Shintaro Kago is a Japanese artist known for his absurdist style. Though first popularized through his work on Manga, Kago expanded into a robust personal practice of illustrated works which leaned further into the surreal and macabre themes he was known for. This book collects a wide selection of such works by the artist.

Selfish by Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian’s Selfish is a nearly wordless, 448-page collection composed entirely of her selfies. The book serves as an archive of Kardashian’s life from 2006 up until her marriage to Kanye West in 2014. One could call the project vain, narcissistic, or self-obsessed, but taken for what it is, Selfish feels like a direct reflection of the era we are living through. Given that there are thousands of forgotten photobooks dedicated to nearly every mundane subject imaginable, the selfie seems like a valid form to archive.

Fruits by Shoichi Aoki

Fruits by Shoichi Aoki compiles over a decade’s worth of Fruits magazine issues, forming a visual documentary of vibrant, left-field Japanese style in the 1990s through street portraits taken during the heyday of Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion scene. First launched as a monthly street fashion magazine in 1997, Fruits has been a fundamental reference point for international creatives for more than two decades. Aoki began the magazine after noticing the uniquely eclectic nature of Harajuku fashion, which felt like a fresh melting pot of influences ranging from Western pop culture and Japanese rave culture to manga and anime. Indeed, the youth captured in the portraits resisted homogeneity, instead embracing vibrant designer clothing mixed with homemade garments and DIY styling. Aoki also founded a UK version of the magazine called STREET in 1985, which notably featured Robert Pattinson before his acting breakthrough. There is also a second volume titled Fresh Fruits, which extends the archive with later issues of the magazine.

Portraits: I Have So Much To Tell You by Gunner Stahl

Gunner Stahl is one of the defining pop-culture photographers of the 2010s. His up-close portraits popularized the Contax T2 film camera and inspired an era of analog, film-forward creative direction in mainstream rap. His photobook Portraits captures nearly every rapper you could think of, often in small studio sessions or casual hangouts, from Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, and Gucci Mane to Mac Miller and Earl Sweatshirt. Stahl also famously shot the cover for Playboi Carti’s 2017 self-titled album, and more recently has directed major music videos like Ken Carson’s “overseas” and “delusional.”

Cherry Blossoms by Damien Hirst

While Damien Hirst is not primarily known for his paintings, the medium is a central component of his oeuvre, a key to understanding shifting his artistic vision in this late period of his career, and an underrated aspect of his output. His “Cherry Blossoms” paintings are perhaps his best. Began 2017 following the completion of his strenuous Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable project, which took him nearly a decade to finish, and accelerated by the forced enclosure of the pandemic, Hirst’s “Cherry Blossoms” are gestural and vibrant paintings that mature the themes and aesthetics of earlier painting series such as “Spot Paintings,” “Visual Candy,” and “Colour Space.” This monograph reproduces 107 incredibly defined images of these paintings, along with information about the series, historic quotes about Cherry Blossoms, and more.

Girl Pictures by Justine Kurland

For the five years between 1997 and 2002, photographer Justine Kurland went on an extended road trip across America. Everywhere she went, she found girls. She asked them to help with her project. The request was simple: imagine you have run away and formed a community with other girls on the fringes of society. “I staged the girls as a standing army of teenage runaways in resistance to patriarchal ideals,” says Kurland in regard to her images of youthful rebellion and wildness. “The images are meant to showcase a female archetype, a romantic myth not entirely dissimilar to its masculine version; the cowboys, outlaws, and beat poets of the feminine domain.” This book collects the images from that series.

The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley

A morbid manual for killing yourself (as a bunny). Riley’s outlandish illustrations pair well with the inventive and irreverent subject matter, and made this book a cult hit, and then an international bestseller. It remains a classic.

Finlandia by Jouko Lehtola

Published in 2004, Finlandia is a look at the disaffected Finnish youth culture of the 80s and 90s by one of the great portraitists of the period. Lehtola’s Young Heroes, which depicted mostly 90s club culture, first earned him widespread acclaim, but the compilation of Finlandia shows a much greater aesthetic range, and truly captures both the intensity of his style and the spirit of a globalizing Finland.

PUNK SHIRTS: A PERSONAL COLLECTION BOOK by Bryan Ray Turcotte

Bryan Ray Turcotte is an LA based creative and author known for working for the legendary punk record label Clash, as well collaborating on installations with the MoCA and brands like Converse, Hysteric Glamour, and Levi’s. Punk Shirts chronicles both his personal collection of rare, highly coveted vintage punk shirts, as well designs from Malcolm McLaren / Vivienne Westwood’s Sedentaries project, and shirts from the collections of punk stars like Sid Vicious and Darby Crash. As a bonus, check out Turcotte’s other book Fucked Up + Photocopied, an archive of the American punk scene between 1977 and 1985.

Studio Voice: Hiromix Special Edition

This 1996 special edition of Studio Voice (a highly influential Japanese culture magazine that began publishing in the 70s) highlights the work of Hiromix, at that point a young rising talent in the photography scene whose tight-frame close-up portrait style was key in shaping the ‘girly photo’ movement that dominated depictions of Japanese female youth culture in the 90s. The portraits are the reason you need it, but the edition’s design is standout too.

256 gb by Yung Lean

Uninhibited intimacy and access is one strategy that today’s celebrities employ to connect with an increasingly attention-stretched audience, and has produced a trend that the likes of Drake, Virgil, and Carti have all partaken in: the releasing (or ‘leaking’) of raw (but curated) files for public consumption. Often labeled not by their contents but by their volume of digital storage, these content dumps often come in unconsidered file share format. In Yung Lean’s case, they came in a beautiful book by acclaimed publisher and design studio Actual Source. 574 images shot on four different iPhones, organized into nine chapters and bound into a book whose construction draws on an Italian bookbinder’s five centuries of expertise in bible-making.

I Love You, Stupid by Dash Snow

New York artist Dash Snow was a photographer whose practice centered on documenting the extreme limits of reckless hedonism through scenes of drugs, fast cars, and benders. I Love You compiles his famous Polaroids in 430 color reproductions. Snow’s lifestyle choices were, in part, a direct reaction to his discontent with increasingly authoritarian government structures and the growing surveillance state he saw emerging around him. To reduce Snow’s work to mere party photography would be a grave misunderstanding. Many of his images depict scenes rarely shown at all, with ejaculation, bleeding, defecation, and urination serving as recurring motifs throughout his work. Snow, who was also the nephew of Uma Thurman, tragically passed away at 27.

Live Through This: New York 2005 by Deitch Projects

Iconic period scenes will light up the imagination of any culturally-inclined mind. X city in Y stretch of years is a romantic formulation we are all familiar with, and for good reason; artistic quality and value do sometimes condense, and a single geographic area can in a span of a few years contribute something remarkable to the global arts. Once that time passes, once it becomes idealized and dramatized in the public consciousness, it can be hard to tell what actually happened. That’s what makes this book published by Deitch Projects so valuable. It is an extensive anthology of the underground arts of New York in the early 00s, focusing on over 30 artists (such as Dash Snow and Corey Arcangel), featuring images of studios, exhibitions, parties, and more, alongside essays and commentary from voices on the ground. A unique and substantive snapshot of a time before Williamsburg got like that.

SEX by Madonna

Madonna’s controversial 1992 book SEX changed the way popstars engaged with taboo in public. Written under her alter-ego “Mistress Dita,” photographed by Steven Meisel, and published alongside Madonna’s album Erotica, the book featured explicit photos and stories from celebreries like Madonna, Vanilla Ice, Isabella Rossellini, Big Daddy Kane, Naomi Campbell, alongside anecdotes from punk lesbians and muscle gays. Breaking records for first-day and first-week sales, SEX was a cultural phenomenon that went on to become the best-selling coffee table book of all time. The book features an embossed metal cover and a foil wrapper (which simulates an oversized condom wrapper), so you couldn’t leaf through it at the store. The book also is accompanied by an exclusive Erotica music CD and a short comic book.

Polaroids from 1979-1981 by H.R. Giger

Swiss artist H. R. Giger’s series of Polaroids from 1979–1981 are like if Nan Goldin’s intimacy met David Cronenberg’s unnervingly corporeal imagination. The collection blends erotic party photography, deranged self-portraits, and alien fetish imagery into a haunting visual archive. At the time, Ridley Scott had commissioned Giger to design the creatures and sets for Alien after discovering his biomechanical horror book Necronomicon. One of the Polaroids notably features the iconic Alien head and tail repurposed as sex props for two women.

Today’s Important Headlines

Fakemink’s album Terrified came with a website and a short film

One of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, Fakemink’s album Terrified, finally dropped last night. The 19-track album is produced entirely by Mink himself, with no features, despite rumors earlier this week of a secret guest appearance. Mink celebrated the release with a live performance in London, where he brought out Preshboyswag, Sixzino, and Zuko. Alongside the album, he launched a website featuring lyrics for each track with short accompanying notes, as well as a short film about a ghost haunting the Chateau Marmont.

Weekly Music Roundup

Nine Vicious comfortably leads the list of most-viewed Rolling Loud sets, with Nettspend, Osamason, Slayr, and Bleood rounding out the top five; ear has officially signed to A24 Music; Pz announced a new mixtape dropping this summer; 1,500 PlaqueBoyMax songs have leaked online; Lil Shine sentenced to 3 years in prison; Mark Cuban now follows Edward Skeletrix on Instagram

It’s also a big week for new music, with releases from Bladee, Charli XCX, Osamason, Slayr, Veeze, Yung Kayo, The Sound Chalk Makes, Ivy Knight, Smerz, diamond*, and NOVA GANG.

$8.4M worth of coke was found in a SKIMS shipment

According to a report from the National Crime Agency, 90 packages of 1kg cocaine, totaling a value of $8.4 million, were discovered via X-ray in a hidden rear door compartment of a SKIMS truck shipment. The NCA clarified that SKIMS was not involved. The 40-year-old Polish truck driver was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison.

“Cruise” collections: what they are, and why you’ve been hearing about them

This year, luxury houses have heavily invested in their Cruise collections, which until recently were treated as minor between-season collections of resortwear for wealthy vacationers. Case in point: Demna’s $10 million Gucci Times Square show, which was a Cruise show, became one of the most expensive runway productions ever staged. Houses like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Chanel also unveiled collections that move far beyond standard Cruise lines. Louis Vuitton unveiled Keith Haring collaborations; Dior pushed far beyond the confines of vacation wear; and Blazy’s Chanel show embraced a classic summer holiday theme, though reducing it to that alone would undersell the creativity and vision behind the collection. This new importance of Cruise collections reflects the endlessly accelerating fashion news cycle, one in which brands feel compelled to assert themselves at every possible opportunity.

Molly Santana performed at a Japanese women’s extreme wrestling league

This week, Molly Santana performed at Sukeban, a Harajuku-style women’s extreme wrestling league that brings underground fight club energy together with eccentric Japanese street style aesthetics, reminiscent of FRUiTS magazine. Santana, who is half Japanese herself, performed wearing custom blacked-out grillz inspired by the traditional practice of ohaguro, or tooth blackening. This week, Santana reportedly earned $500,000 for her feature on Drake’s project, with her monthly listeners surging from 600,000 to 10 million overnight.

Footwear roundup

A$AP Rocky and Puma’s new scaly mule silhouette; Loewe’s new low profile shoes drawing comparisons to skate brand Village; New Balance x Stone Island collaboration; Nike Air Foamposite One “Tianjin 2.0”; Crocs x Slam Jam clogs embedded with galvanized flat-head nails; futuristic footwear from Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 2027 collection; Clarks Originals’ gingham pack; and Salomon x MM6 Maison Margiela XT sneakers

Teaser for the Prada x Hideo Kojima exhibit at NYC’s Hotel Chelsea

Building on last year’s Satellites collaboration between Prada, Hideo Kojima, and Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon), the three-way project will return as Satellites II, taking over New York’s iconic Chelsea Hotel from June 3–7. A six-minute teaser for the installation, starring Winding Refn and Kojima, premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in a private screening on Tuesday. Refn has said he often feels that he and Kojima “were split from the same consciousness,” a sentiment that helped inspire the sci-fi Space Odyssey-style concept, which concludes with the pair checking into the Chelsea Hotel.

Spotify is introducing AI-generated covers and remixes

Launching as a separate paid add-on to Spotify Premium, Spotify and Universal Music Group made a new tool that will allow users to generate AI covers and remixes using songs from participating artists and songwriters. These artists would earn royalties from the generated tracks. It marks the first time a major streaming platform has openly embraced consumer-facing generative AI tools, and given UMG’s status as one of the “Big Three” record labels, the deal signals a major shift in how the music industry will approach AI. Online reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, with many users criticizing Spotify for continuing to prioritize the top 0.1% of artists while simultaneously cracking down on human-made bootlegs and SoundCloud remixes. In happier Spotify news, the platform is rolling out a new feature called “Reserved,” which will combat scalpers, and give an artist’s top listeners early access to concert tickets.

Artist’s installation transforms the oldest bridge in Paris into a massive cave (and they’re playing Daft Punk in there)

La Caverne, or The Cave, is the latest exhibition by French artist Jean-René, more commonly known as JR. The installation transforms Paris’s oldest bridge, Pont Neuf, into a 120-meter-long, 18-meter-high inflatable cave, designed to mimic the limestone quarries on which the city’s foundations were originally built. Upon entering the space, visitors are greeted by sounds by Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk. The exhibition is open to the public 24/7 from June 6 to June 28.

Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)

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People say NEW YORK, the electronic music project of Coumba Samba and Gretchen Lawrence, make ‘experimental’ music. Coumba and Gretchen have a simpler description: ‘girl pop.’ However you describe it, this music makes you want to dance. Incorporating their respective origins in US (Coumba) and Euro (Gretchen) electronic music, NEW YORK’s high-tempo glitchy production provides a contrasting base for their minimal and poetic lyricism. These are club ballads delivered in deadpan.

The duo live in New York, though they used to live in London. We went to their recent show in NY, part of the avant-pop music showcase C2C Festival (other C2C performers included Arca and Elias Bender Rønnenfelt), where they performed to a youthful green strobe-lit crowd in what appeared to be train conductor hats. Everyone danced. When it was over, we caught them outside the venue and asked them a few questions.

Interviews by @dannycoleee and @maddiestockunas

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Bach, 25 - Student

This collection feels like it’s about the stock bros in New York.

Kyra, 20 - Student

Their target audience is someone who can afford to have Gucci. I don't own anything Gucci and I don't really plan on owning anything Gucci until I'm able to.

If I could afford to wear it, then yes, I would. Gucci is coming full circle. It’s becoming something to align with again. It’s getting there.

Miles, 18 - Student

I don’t actually like Gucci. I think if it was more radicalized, like if we dropped this whole—but I don’t give a fuck anymore. It’s just: how long can we draw from the past to make things new?

I think Demna is a very interesting person and I’m excited to see the direction that he would take any brand in general. But I don’t like high fashion brands. I think all the people here are either workers or people who spend 10s of thousdans of dollars on these brands every year. So I don’t love it. I want to observe from an outside standpoint.

Jazmine, 32 - Product care for Gucci

I know a lot of fashion is cyclical, so I'm hoping like this will be something that can add to the cycle that people can reference maybe in like 10, 20 years.

Peter, 74 - Retired employee benefit program employee

I’m not crazy over it, you know, but I know the quality. But wearing Gucci is more about adopting an identity as opposed to just the quality. It's the character that they created over the years. The longevity of the product, and the brand.

Zach, 36 - Finance

I love the brand. Always have. Old Italian, like, you know, old school. Yeah, I love it.

What do you think of the new stuff?

The dumbest thing. I'm mostly here to support my boyfriend. He's been working on this for 5 months and I don't think people realize how much goes into like something like this. What do you guys do? What is this for?

Levana (twin), 30 - Student

A few years ago, people were saying “oh, that's so Gucci.” Then, Gucci went through a bit of a slump.

Now Gucci’s a little too mainstream. So they’re trying to like elevate it up again. I’m curious to see how they're going to revive themselves to be Gucci again. I think that’s why they’re trying to bring in new designers from Demna.

I've always been following Demna throughout his career, so I wanted to see how he would take what he did at his Balanciaga and translate it to Gucci.

Lena (twin) 30 - Student

I think Gucci is trying to make themselves cool again, more urban. And the 1st place I would think of is New York City.

Eva, 21 - Student

The brand is in a weird place right now. I think Demna is following the whole Balenciaga shtick where everything is ironic and, um, kind of flashy.

Maybe that might work for Gucci, but it might not. I think there are a lot of polarizing ideas he’s doing. Some people are really for it and, others are just not for it. But I think that he will pay tribute to Tom Ford's Gucci era, and it'll be great.

Paul, 27 - Artist and founder

Oh, Demna... Innovator. I feel like he has some of the best stage design out of any other designers in high fashion.

It seems to be like an exploration of what’s beyond late stage capitalism and techno-feudalism.

Julia, 26 - Frame maker

I've never been to a fashion show before. So it's a different experience for me. I love clothes. I don't follow fashion, really. People outside of fashion... I don’t think they’re really following it. It feels like a very niche world to me.I know some people who work in fashion. For them, having a new creative director is really exciting.

Zane, 22 - Media and music industry

Gucci was lit when I was in high school. Everyone had on Gucci backpacks because Chief Keef was wearing it. Like, Migos back in 2016, the Gucci stripe with the Balenciaga Triple S, and all that. That was a crazy era.

Nothing can even come close to that anymore. And, like, people are trying. Like... try, but, unless you really do some crazy studying, you're not going to really unite with the people that felt the same with Gucci back then.

I don’t care about the brands. I have self-confidence. A lot of people don't have self-confidence. I'm like very privileged in the sense that I like how I look, and I think that reflects in my confidence and what I wear, and I don't need an expensive brand to kind of show my wealth.

But of Gucci wanted to do some cool shit, let Chief Keef walk the runway. If Demna makes a crackhead look, like if he makes someone walk down a street like a crackhead, I will buy Gucci.

Stephanie, 28 - Brand production

We took a creative director from Balenciaga and we brought him to Gucci. Gucci is old money. Balenciaga is a 21st century brand that blew up by focusing on trends and hyper maximalism.

You bring this creative director that's very alternative to Gucci. Honestly, it was a shocker. Maybe it's going to make this brand more fun because right now Gucci is very old money, antique, very flashy in their branding.

Right now, I'm bored. I'm very bored with Gucci. I’m excited to see where they're going, and if they're leading towards something that's monumental, because Gucci is supposed to be a quote unquote monumental brand, right? So I would like to see something monumental.

Kayla, 22 - Student

The only Gucci I am surrounded by is, like, my mom's vintage. Honestly, it's not as interesting as old designer.

When you see somebody wearing Gucci, what’s your read on them?

Obnoxious maybe, depending how they wear it. Especially just logos in general with any designer. Just flashy.

Jamie, 22 - Garment construction

I think Demna is probably one of the smartest people in fashion right now. I think in general, his play on irony on satiricalness, his provocativeness, I think, is something that nobody else is really doing. And his willingness to fuck with people, especially the fake ads going before the show started. Demna’s just making fun of New York culture, especially doing his show in Times Square.

He's showing what the actual Gucci customer looks like.And I think that the Gucci customer is gonna be purchasing more, even more, because they're making products that is specifically for them. What Demna does is really prioritize his customer. You see it in the last show, you saw it on this. It's things that these people are gonna be buying. Which I think is such a smart business move. It solidifies himself as a businessman, but also a creative.

Sophia, 20 - Sales associate

I previously would never buy a modern Gucci piece. I mean, I still can't afford to. But if I could, I absolutely would now.

I feel like in the past years, it was kind of dated or just not really for me. And now I'm really liking how edgy it is.

Yiyi, 20 - Student

Nobody I know wears Gucci. I feel neutral about it. I don't pay attention to a lot of luxury brands. Maybe like in a few years, I'll feel differently.

Jason, 37 - Gucci employee

I remember seeing those businessmen wearing Gucci in the city and I wanted to look like those men. And then seeing where it is now, I feel like because it's taking on more of like this edgier type of vibe and it has like a very young feel to it, I think it's the best way to really captivate new audiences.

Addison, 19 - Student

I mean, who doesn’t want to see all the newest fashion right now? I really am enjoying the newer collection. I thought Gucci was tacky before.

It’s feeling accessible now. Even doing the show in Times Square where everyone can see the work they have done. It’s special.

Today’s Important Headlines

Music roundup

Drake dropped three albums: Iceman, Habibti, Maid of Honour; Lucki’s album is out along with a new documentary; New Carti remix on a track with rising Atlanta rapper FATT SMAXK; Bladee drops a new song “Blondie” along with a video; The Rolling Stones with a new single “In the Stars” along with a music video featuring deepfake younger versions of themselves; There’s also new releases from SALEM, Vegyn, Ear (A24 collab), Klein, The Strokes, Lil Shine, bleood, and BNYX.

Artworld roundup

Check out our Venice Biennale roundup here. In the wake of the Biennale buzz, NYC Art Week is now in full swing: Frieze New York opened Wednesday with 80 galleries participating in tonight’s Tribeca Gallery Night; The Met is set to merge with Neue Galerie in a deal bringing over $1.5 billion worth of art into its orbit; the second-most expensive Rothko ever was sold at public auction this week; London artist Anouska Samms accused the Met Gala’s Costume Institute of stealing and failing to credit her work; Iris van Herpen is receiving a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum; and the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize has been awarded to Jongjin Park.

A24 built The Backrooms in real life

Ahead of A24’s upcoming Backrooms film, the studio built an immersive IRL backroom in Burbank, California, in which last night they hosted a DJ set from experimental musician Instupendo, whose work has long revolved around the aesthetics of liminal spaces. Spanning 30,000 square feet of endless fluorescent-lit yellow maze hallways, visitors can wander through the damp, carpeted liminal nightmare through today.

Highly anticipated SALEM x Supreme collection came with a surprise 31-track project

SALEM and Supreme dropped a small collection this week featuring New Era snapbacks, half-zip stadium jackets, zip-up hooded sweatshirts, rhinestone-studded graphic tees, and hospital grippy socks. SALEM, who has not released music since 2020’s Fires in Heaven, also dropped Red Dragon, a project compiling 31 tracks that had never been officially released before. The collab is highly hyped and is already projected to resell at significant mark-up. In other Supreme news, Supreme-branded gold bars released this week.

The AP x Swatch collab was a bait-and-switch

The internet went crazy this week when AP and Swatch announced a collaboration. AP said the piece would be inspired by its Royal Oak model, a highly coveted design typically worth thousands of dollars. As a result, many began camping for the release six days before launch. In a turn of events, the collaboration turned out to be a cheap detachable lanyard piece, only very loosely inspired by the craftsmanship of an actual AP Royal Oak.

Footwear roundup

adidas Originals, Y-3, and Wales Bonner’s three-way collaboration spanning footwear, apparel, and a statement leather handbag; Thrasher x adidas Predators bringing skate culture into a football silhouette; Nike Shox’s unconventional ballet shoes; Vans x Better With Age patchwork sneakers; Chloé’s jelly mules; Nike x Kids of Immigrants on a T-90 mule, which revives a classic Nike archive silhouette; Converse x Madhappy collaboration; Camper Lab’s modular shoes designed to be worn in 16 different ways; and Our Legacy Work Shop x Converse Chuck 70 “Overdyed Black” with a distressed finish.

Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)

From The Archive

An extra piece of content from the Welcome Archive for Magazine subscribers only.

White throated dippers are one of the only songbirds that hunt underwater.

They trap air in their waterproof feathers, which helps keep them warm while walking along riverbeds searching for food.

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Reporting and photos by Bryan Munguia

The globalized Art World’s favorite culture orgy, the Venice Biennale, entered its 61st edition over the weekend, once again transforming the floating lagoon of Venice into the epicenter of international contemporary art.

It’s for good reason that they call the Venice Biennale the “Art Olympics.” Every two years, it invites countries from around the world to stage exhibitions showcasing the best art their nation has to offer. It runs for a whopping six months, and it is arguably the best litmus test for what’s happening in global art.

The Biennale’s official exhibition is staged in the Giardini (a landscaped garden housing permanent national pavilions built over the last century) and the Arsenale (a former naval shipyard transformed into an art complex), but a glut of collateral exhibitions spill into the rest of the city as well. At the center of this circus is the Biennale’s official main exhibition, curated by a single artistic director. It’s considered one of the most important exhibitions in the world, and a high honor for a curator. This year’s exhibition, In Minor Keys, was curated by Koyo Kouoh, who tragically and suddenly passed away before she could see her magnum opus fully realized.

After drifting through the Biennale’s preview week, it became clear to me that the defining theme of the Biennale this year is death. Not just Kouoh’s, but that of the Venice Biennale as we know it. The exhibition’s cultural universalism is facing increasing contradictions: as exhausted art professionals flooded the archipelago for private dinners, vaporetto rides, and unapologetic networking, public protests over the inclusion of Israel and Russia in the Biennale erupted, with many calling for “death to the Biennale.” The jury entrusted with assigning prestigious prizes at the exhibition resigned over the same issue days before the preview opening. Transcultural kumbaya isn’t working anymore.

Despite all this, the mood on the ground still felt quite optimistic. After years of overtly political themes choking artistic spirit, there’s a shift away from identity-for-identity’s-sake in art. It’s a pivot that echoes writer Dean Kissick’s contentious essay “The Painted Protest,” which argues that much contemporary art collapses into moral signaling rather than transcendental beauty. This year’s Biennale, despite centering marginality and diasporic perspectives, avoids direct political sloganeering.

After all, everyone can see the world is fragmented. The urgent question at this year’s Biennale is whether art can still connect those fragments. Some artists and curators are doing genuinely intelligent things in this context. Most are not. To save you the trip to Italy to find out which is which, here are, in my view, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the noteworthy of this year’s Venice Biennale.

THE GOOD

HELTER SKELTER, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince, Fondazione Prada

The best shows in Venice typically take place outside the official Biennale. My favorite of the week was, without a doubt, HELTER SKELTER, pairing Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince at Fondazione Prada.

Despite their different racial and social backgrounds, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince are mutual oracles of Americana. Jafa captures the joy and violence of Black experience, while Prince (who Jafa once called “the Blackest white guy he’s ever met”) dissects the seductive machinery of white American mythmaking. These two masters of appropriation art compliment each other effortlessly.

Jafa’s LOML video piece was a standout. Two spectral blobs of fluid light merge and separate while a slowed-down version of “Someone in the Dark” by Michael Jackson scores the choreography. Projections of light become projections of my personal life. Pain, shame, love, guilt, rejection, pleasure, joy. The human condition feels completely understood by this abstracted melancholy.

These two American punks serve a masterclass in good political art; it reveals something about the world beyond superficial signifiers. A curator mentioned to me that this should have been the American Pavilion, and I couldn’t agree more.

GRASS BABIES, MOON BABIES, Ei Arakawa-Nash, Japan Pavilion

Arguably, the most absurd exhibition at the Venice Biennale is Ei Arakawa-Nash’s uncanny baby-doll takeover of the Japan Pavilion. At first, I genuinely thought I was hallucinating as I saw every visitor carrying a baby doll. When I reach the front of the queue, I’m handed my own, which is weighted disturbingly accurately, and instructed to babysit the doll while visiting the pavilion.

I become attached almost immediately. Upstairs in the main exhibition, babies are everywhere. Some rest sculpturally on rafters and ropes, but most are nestled in the arms of art world professionals. Somewhere along the way, I genuinely projected care onto this inanimate object, and when it is time to return it I hesitate. This is partially Arakawa-Nash’s point: creating a temporary space for collective care while exposing how socially constructed those emotional registers really are.

**SPEED ROUND**

Other standouts, quickly:

BASIC FAILURE, Sanya Kantarovsky, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Loredan

Paintings that capture a certain style of taboo attractive to a curious subconscious. Placed in the Palazzo’s ornate interior, which was the perfect home for them.

STILL JOY–FROM UKRAINE INTO THE WORLD

One of the best curated national presentations. A cohort of young Ukrainian artists showed a lot of promise. Ryan Gander’s animatronic puppet slumped atop a pile of trash was a standout piece.

CANICULA, Fondazione In Between Art and Film

Eight commissioned filmic artworks exploring systems under extreme political and psychological pressure. Highlights include Yuyan Wang’s soulful montages of robotics occupying natural, organic forms, and Roman Khimei and Yarema Malaschuka’s work showing a cast of Ukrainian actors playing former Soviet roles. Hauntingly timely material.

SCREEN MELANCHOLY, Li Yi-Fan, Taiwan Pavilion

A digital lecture-performance fused with installation plays in this palazzo, unpacking the ethics and mechanics of animation and 3D modeling through a work that is equally funny and unnerving. It’s also one of the only films at the Biennale that manages to hold an audience completely captive for an entire hour.

THE BAD

Russian Pavilion

This experience made me feel like one of those Model UN kids. I passed by a squad of armed Italian policemen on my way into the pavilion. War crimes and the G word are definitely the elephant in the room.

I must report that this pavilion is incredibly strange, and not in a good way. The works, I think, are a few floral sculptures suspended throughout the pavilion that look disenchanted under dimmed lighting. It looks like something made by an expensive florist. To twist the knife, there’s also a DJ blasting Brazilian Baile Funk. A few young people dance in weird papier-mache masks, and one girl is balancing on a giant red ball.

A cryptic sign now lives in the pavilion, saying it was a “happening” and more of an if-you-know-you-know sort of ordeal. Why participate?

CALL ME THE BREEZE, Alma Allen, United States Pavilion

The US tends to be the world’s scapegoat, but we do it to ourselves. The unanimous worst pavilion goes to the United States, and the nonsense sculptures by Alma Allen therein. To Allen’s credit, he had only about four months to put together a show after a previous artist’s proposal fell through.

I spend less than five minutes here because there isn’t much dialogue to be had with these blobs of shiny decorative metal. The US tried to get away with a commercial gallery exhibition in a national pavilion setting.

THE NOTEWORTHY

Beyond simple “good” or “bad,” here are a few exhibitions in Venice that can’t go unmentioned

SEAWORLD VENICE, Florentina Holzinger, Austrian Pavilion

It doesn’t get much more spectacular than Florentina Holzinger’s hyper-butch dystopia, SEAWORLD VENICE, at the Austrian Pavilion. An on-the-nose metaphor of Venice’s environmental crisis, acted out by nude female performers. The performers’ bodies feel mechanical, caught somewhere between hard and soft, woman and machine. It’s a universe somewhere between Waterworld and femme-dom Mad Max.

In one section, performers scale a totemic altar and strike poses that feel somewhere between religious ceremony, indoor climbing, and Balenciaga fashion campaign. On the other side of the room, another performer rides a jet ski in hypnotic circles. As the speed intensifies, the still water begins to grow into something genuinely cinematic. Ripples become waves. The room becomes a storm. There’s even a splash zone if you’re standing close enough.

Everywhere you look, there’s performance happening. Outside, visitors become participants in the installation with port-a-potties filtering their pee into a freshwater tank where another performer is stoically sitting. Apparently, the NO SHITTING signs posted near the toilets are due to someone recently defecating and clogging up the system.

No one is respecting the pavilion’s no-photo policy, which only reinforces the sense that this presentation is more simulation than reality. On opening day, a performer used her own body to ring a church bell at the top of every hour. The piece proves the human body can still command more attention than almost any other artistic medium.

Austria’s legacy of avant-garde performance art rooted in the brutality of Viennese Actionism is clear here. This, though, is closer to a techno-fetish Cirque du Soleil than something genuinely transgressive. Still, it remains oddly sincere in capturing the absurdity of contemporary political spectacle.

THINGS TO COME, Maja Malou Lyse, Danish Pavilion

The Danish Pavilion is designed specifically for the porn-sick. I and what felt like every gay guy in Venice found ourselves captured inside Maja Malou Lyse’s laboratory-like immersive installation, which wraps the pavilion in videos of professional porn actors performing dissociative acts. In the sterile clinical environment, we collectively giggle at the campy porn scenes. In one video, an actress rhythmically bounces her augmented breasts against a stark white backdrop. In another, an actress guides us through a sperm bank like some VR roleplay blown out of the headset.

The work directly references real Danish sperm bank studies claiming VR headsets used during collection increased motile sperm counts by 50%. We already know pornography has a firm grip on the psyche, but it’s strange to consider its ability to alter the reproductive efficiency of the human species. Inside Malou Lyse’s universe, pornstars are anointed as deities for a technocratic future.

Like Florentina Holzinger, Malou Lyse uses immersion to create a meta-reflection between viewers and the technologies shaping them. I, however, wasn’t necessarily contemplating pornography’s relationship to fertility while inside the pavilion. I mostly stayed for the immaculate corporate bimbo atmosphere.

IN MINOR KEYS

I obviously have to mention the Biennale’s main exhibition, exhibited across the labyrinthine halls of the Arsenale and Giardini. You move through dimly lit installations, meditative films, suspended fabrics, sonic environments, and fragile gestures, united in their attempt to produce a feeling of intimacy amidst the overwhelming machinery of contemporary life.

The thing about this exhibition, however, is that every art professional I speak to seems to agree that the resonance here falls flat. Framed through the metaphor of musical “minor keys,” the exhibition asks viewers to slow down, resist, listen, and contemplate through works centered on marginality and spirit. In theory, this makes sense. But when you place so much emphasis on inserting diasporic voices into a Western institutional complex, much of that charge weakens. It converts into spectacle, failing to produce the cohesive prose the exhibition is so desperately reaching toward.

My favorite work was Carrie Schneider’s large-scale filmic appropriations from the French New Wavefilm La Jetée (1962). The industrial presence of the work in the Arsenale, combined with the warped repetition of the film roll and its tunnel-like distortions, produces something omniscient. The image is like an apparition, suspended between memory and machinery. Here, the exhibition hits its mark.

I got to Orlando Thursday morning. I was staying in an airbnb with a bunch of the music blog homies: For the Speakers, ibreathemusicallday, Off Record Sounds, Cash Cow Music, and others.

The label apg hosted an open bar pregame I went to before the Feng House Party that Sad Prt hosted. I was DJing the Feng party, and the cops came right after my set so I was basically the headliner.

There was drama with the balcony above where I was DJing because it could only support three people at a time, so they had to keep kicking people off of it so it wouldn’t collapse and crush everyone at the DJ table. The whole thing was a frat party. It reminded me of being back in Michigan.

Friday was the first day of the festival. Weirdly none of the staff knew where the press area was. I guess they didn’t want people back there that shouldn’t be back there. So we had to go find it.

In the press pit, you had to be really on it with these artists. Even if you had something set up beforehand with the PR company or label, you had to fight for your time. When Xavier walked out there were probably 50 people crowded around him trying to get an interview or photo. I had all my shit set up beforehand but some artists just didn’t work out because it was chaotic or their team was disorganized. It really came down to how good your relationship was with whoever was in charge of the artists.

The security is very very strict. I was hearing complaints from artist teams about it. Some DJs got kicked out for security reasons. After an artist performed they would literally get driven off-site. If they wanted to come back to do more press or whatever, sometimes they weren’t allowed back in.

Nettspend had the best set for sure. He had the red hair. It started raining. It was super fire. My other favorite set was Feng. He put footage from the day before of me DJing at his party on the stage visuals. The crowd was getting lit as fuck. You see all this Feng discourse, but it’s really just online shit. In real life his fans love him.

I’m not really a fan of Nine Vicious but his set was fire. He had a strong stage presence, stronger than I had thought, and cool screaming sound effects. Bleood was good. I didn’t see 2Slimey but I heard his set was crazy too.

Snow Strippers was performing at the same time as Don Toliver who was headlining. I was saying like, yo, they could have a bigger turn out than Don Toliver. I was totally wrong but their set was cool. The Rolling Loud crowd was fully appreciating what they were seeing. Snow Strippers were playing a lot of beat tracks, and some deeper cuts like the Christian Dior Denim Flow remix, which I did not expect.

Overall the festival was one of the best I’ve been to. Just more evidence that the underground is where the culture is at right now. The mainstream lacks community.

Backstage Portraits

All portraits by Dom

Part theater, part construction project, part marketing campaign, the runway show is a keystone production for any fashion house, and one of the best ways to understand the latest intricacies of a brand’s vision. Generally, shows are delicate atmospheres that succeed in subtle ways through cohesion of set, setting, casting, music, and collection. Sometimes, though, they are not subtle at all.

Karl Lagerfeld’s 2007 Fendi show on the Great Wall of China was not only the least subtle runway show ever, it was also one of the most expensive. 500 guests were transported to the top of the Great Wall’s Mutianyu section, a stretch originally built in 1368, and lined the exceptionally long runway on which the Spring-Summer 2008 collection made its first appearance.

The show’s creative direction was motivated, as so many are, by commercial strategy. In 2007, the entire fashion world was reckoning with the rising power of the Chinese consumer. Fendi was attempting to break into the market.

Apart from the setting, other aspects of the show nodded to the target demographic: the runway was 88 meters (the longest ever, by the way) and there were 88 models walking it because 88 is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture; they put Ziyi Zhang (a Chinese actress) and Kate Bosworth (an American one) side-by-side in the front row; circular patterns appeared throughout the garments and staging, referencing traditional Chinese symbols associated with happiness and harmony.

Getting 500 cultural elites, equipment, lighting systems, staging materials, and production crews to the top of the Great Wall turned the event into a massive logistical operation. The total cost was estimated at around $10 million, an enormous number for a runway show in 2007, and adjusting for inflation making it one of the most expensive ever thrown.

Unbeknownst to Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi, but widely known among the show’s producers, was that but Fendi did not have official permission to stage the show there.

“There is no procedure to do a show on the Great Wall,” Michael Burke, who was the chief executive officer at Fendi, said later in an interview. “There is no single entity that controls the wall. We had to deal with 47 different entities and not a single one of them could approve anyone else’s. And you’d never get approvals. All you’d ever get is non-rejections.”

A key figure behind the project was graphic-designer-turned-entrepreneur Terence Chu, who helped connect the Fendi to the Chinese market and assisted with the event’s local coordination. He made a lot of money since the 00s doing this for other brands as well, including Hermes and Dolce & Gabbana.

Today, massive destination runway shows are common. Dior staged its 2022 menswear show at the Pyramids of Giza; Balenciaga held a show inside the New York Stock Exchange. Fendi’s Great Wall show ran the focus group on this strategy, and remains unusually excessive even by modern standards. As luxury mogul Bernard Arnault said, this was the first, and probably still the only, fashion show whose runway you could see from the surface of the moon.

Today’s Important Headlines

Met Gala best looks

Anok Yai’s weeping Mother of Sorrows-inspired Balenciaga look; Skepta’s Thom Browne suit embroidered with replicas of his own tattoos; Rachel Sennott’s custom Marc Jacobs polka-dot dress inspired by John Baldessari; Janelle Monáe’s avant-garde Christian Siriano gown blending nature and technology; Madonna’s custom Yves Saint Laurent look inspired by The Temptation of Saint Anthony; Finn Wolfhard’s sharply tailored Thom Browne suit; Emma Chamberlain’s Starry Night inspired hand-painted Mugler dress; and Eileen Gu’s Iris van Herpen “Airo” bubble dress composed of 15,000 glass bubbles.

US Marshals are auctioning off iced-out chains seized from criminals

The US Marshals Service is currently auctioning off a collection of jewelry seized through federal criminal investigations and later absorbed into the government’s Asset Forfeiture Program. Several of the pieces reportedly belonged to Peewee Longway, though the most bizarre items are two ownerless mystery chains: an iced-out M&M pendant decked in Chanel and a fully gold-studded Mr. Peanut chain.

New shoe roundup

Birkenstock’s 4 shoe collaboration with Song for the Mute; Timberland’s collaboration with Public School, which made an appearance during Met Gala coverage; CAMPERLAB’s brutalist square-toed Mensomal silhouette; Chief Keef x Bravest slipper dropping Friday; Paracia’s calfskin Mary Jane inspired by a Jean-Michel Basquiat look from a 1987 Comme des Garçons runway; Vans’ bejeweled collaboration with Satoshi Nakamoto featuring tear-away uppers; and adidas’s latest collaboration with Song for the Mute.

Slawn did the cover art for the new Michael Jackson compilation album

Olaolu Slawn has painted the alternative vinyl cover for the new Michael Jackson album and soundtrack, marking the artist’s first-ever oil painting. Described by Slawn as a heavily textured departure from his usual spray-paint approach, the work was developed after an extensive period studying Jackson’s own artwork, and references the iconography he used to construct his public image across decades of visual output. Slawn called it “the most important work” he expects to make for some time. The completed painting was first exhibited at Saatchi Yates this spring ahead of its commercial release.

A24 released the trailer for its Anthony Bourdain film

A24 released the first trailer for Tony, an upcoming Anthony Bourdain film focusing not on his entire life, but on a single formative summer during the mid-1970s. Rather than pursuing a conventional cradle-to-grave biopic structure, the film focuses on capturing the psychological formation of Bourdain before fame. Dominic Sessa stars in the lead role under director Matt Johnson, known for Nirvanna the Band the Show.

Met Gala worst looks

Alysa Liu’s underwhelming Louis Vuitton look; Bhavitha Mandava’s Chanel styling; Hudson William in Balenciaga; Laura Sanchez’s Schiaparelli gown; Somber in Valentino; and Sarah Paulson’s distasteful “Blinded by money” critique, which many felt landed more performative than incisive.

Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)

Moodboard 066

Today’s inspiration supplement. Click through to view.

From The Archive

An extra piece of content from the Welcome Archive for Magazine subscribers only.

Björk’s “Bachelorette” lyrics written in Braille seen tattooed on a woman’s back at a Modest Mouse concert in Toronto (2005).

Classifieds

Exciting opportunities, employment and otherwise

Burberry — Social Art Director, Beauty (London, UK)

Senior creative role leading the development of social-first beauty content across Burberry Beauty channels. Responsibilities include art directing shoots, developing platform-native storytelling, collaborating with creators and agencies, and evolving the brand’s visual identity across digital platforms. Ideal candidate has extensive beauty and luxury experience, a strong portfolio of social content, and proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, and video editing tools.
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Kith — Assistant Graphic Designer (Brooklyn, NY)

Full-time on-site role supporting the graphics team across tech packs, product development, apparel graphics, and production coordination. Responsibilities include assisting with technical specs, factory communications, Men’s graphics design, and cross-functional collaboration across collections. Ideal candidate has 1–3 years experience, strong organizational skills, and proficiency in Adobe Suite, PLM systems, and fashion product development workflows.
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Jaded London — Creative Content & Styling Coordinator (London, UK)

Full-time creative coordination role overseeing styling, shoot production support, mood boarding, model bookings, and visual research across campaigns, e-commerce, and social content. Responsibilities include styling looks, coordinating samples, assisting on set, sourcing creative talent, and supporting campaign development. Ideal candidate has strong fashion styling instincts, industry awareness, and experience working across creative production environments.
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Interview by Mikail Haroon

It’s clear that contemporary music runs on references. Particularly intense in the underground, the job of a rising artist is curating the world around their work as much as it is the work itself. And in today’s electropop scene, that world often makes the same references: Crystal-Castles-bait, 2010’s-indie-sleaze-homage, MGMT-at-Wesleyan. In this sort of environment, complete originality is all but impossible. What is possible, and still all too rare, is to synthesize from a unique combination of references a world that feels genuinely new.

Ms* Gloom, a rising siren in underground electropop, is one of those few artists building a world of their own. Her sound is atmospheric and darkwave-esque, layering her incredible vocals over production that draws from both techno and synth-pop traditions. Her aesthetic is founded on a red and black color palette, and infuses references to Art Deco design and film noir’s darkly unsettling tone. Taken as a whole, Gloom’s aesthetic world feels untethered from a tangible place or time, like something you would encounter at a neo-futuristic club in Batman Beyond.

People are falling in love with Gloom’s world. In the last couple of months, Gloom has sold out live shows in NYC and LA, and DJed at Le Bain (alongside Somewhere Special) and Colour Factory (with Pz* and The Twins). At the end of February, she released her debut mixtape J Is for Joon, a wistful, desire-driven, and energetic follow-up to her 2024 album Ballads for Da Bizness. Her sound has also gained traction in the Scandinavian underground, earning co-signs from Swedish producers and frequent Drain Gang collaborators Varg™ and Woesum.

I had the chance to attend her second-ever headline live show at my favorite small venue in NY, Nightclub 101, which has been sold out for weeks, and where she was supported by friends Pretty Sick (@sickysab) and Ren G. When she steps out, she’s dressed in her signature palette: red, black, and gold-beige, adorned with symbols that echo her cover arts, paired with medieval-style knee guards chained to her ankles. The slightly off-kilter, ornate stool completes her avant-garde stage set.

At one point, the girl next to me mentions she drove 8 hours alone just for the show. When an artist can make someone do that, it’s time to listen. So I decided to give Ms* Gloom a call. We spoke about daily life, Gossip Girl, SoundCloud deep cuts, what the future holds, and more. That conversation follows.

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Mikail Haroon: For people who don’t know who you are, who are you? What do you do?

Ms* Gloom: I actually hate saying this. I’m a musician. I have a musical project called Ms* Gloom.

MH: This new project was recorded over the past like five years or something, right? Was there more recently recorded music that was not included on the project?

MG: “Flowa Girl” was the only one that was kind of new. I felt nervous that maybe the project didn’t feel like me anymore. But those are just inner demons talking because it’s very much me. It’s tough when you’re making a lot of new things at the same time as trying to release another project.

You just sold out shows in LA and New York. Do you have plans for other live shows either in those or other cities?

I’m DJing some stuff. I don’t want to play live too many times in a row. I know people do it, but I don’t know. I also haven’t DJed in so long. It might be horrible. I don’t really remember how to use the CDJs.

Was LA the first live performance you’ve done?
It was the first headlining show that I’ve done. I played three other times. I played 2 songs at El Cid, then Creepy Tepee in 2025. Then in Barcelona the same year. But this definitely felt like my first show in a way.

I love your remix of “LV Sandals”, and I’ve been listening to your old remix of “I Don’t Wanna Know” by Mario Winans. Do you think you’ll release more remixes in the future?

Oh my god. You know that one.

I can see where your sound has progressed from that.

I kind of want to make a better version of that. It’s mixed so badly. But no, I have not one plan in sight to make another remix right now. I feel like I end up making cool remixes every time I make a radio mix. I’m always remixing a lot of the songs for longer mixes and then I ask myself if I should release those?

You posted a stripped down guitar snippet on your story the other week. Can we expect some more acoustic leaning music coming?

I feel like this is so common with artists where they release something and then they want to swing into the opposite direction. I’ve been wanting to do that for a little while now. I wouldn’t say that the next project is going to be acoustic at all, but it’s definitely something that I want to do at some point. I would want to do it under a different name just so I could have total freedom and not ask for permission on when to release things. If I’m going to do that I want to make sure it’s as raw as possible and I want to just release as I go. But I do have a lot of that kind of stuff on my computer that I’ve made.

What do you find cringe right now?

Lore. People need to stop saying that. It’s so annoying to me. There was a long time when people would overuse the word iconic and misplace it, attaching it to things that were just not. Now people are saying lore. I hung out with some new friends recently and everyone was like “Lore this, lore that.”I thought this was just some instagram shit. But no, people are saying it like in real life. Everyone’s just saying, do it for the lore. Fucking kill myself. I really don’t like it. It’s too much. You can’t contrive it or or make it up. It’s a natural thing. You can’t self-prescribe yourself as having lore. Like who are you to say you have lore?

If music didn’t exist, what would you be doing instead?

I’d probably still have my old job, which is working in a corporation. But I don’t think I’d last very long. I was really losing it there for a moment. I love fashion. I would want to do something there, but I don’t know how successful I would be. I kind of feel like I want to go back to school and study something.

What would you study if you went back to school?

That’s a good question. It’d have to be something totally unrelated to the arts for me to feel like it was worth it. Maybe programming or something where I have to really challenge myself. My friend just got into med school and she was a model and I’m like, you know you could just make money here being pretty, right?

What is the best set that you’ve ever seen?

Oh man, I have a few. I saw Aphex Twin at a festival in Houston. I think the guy who runs it got cancelled. It was in 2016 or 2017 and it was the first time he’d played in a really long time, and it was pouring rain and all my friends left except one and it was fucking crazy. Especially because the strobe lights were glitching through the rain. It was so beautiful.

In 2015 I saw M.E.S.H. in Berlin and he played Britney Spears with club music. At the time I had never seen that before. I was like whoa okay you can do that. It influenced me a lot.

I saw Kap Bambino live. It’s just like listening to it on the record, the same energy carries. And Molly Nilsson I saw an amazing show at Echoplex not that long ago actually. She’s talking to the audience as if we’re at dinner with her or something. It was so funny. And there’s no one playing her music with her. She’s just pressing play on the laptop.

Also Andy Stott in Berlin, 2018, sitting criss-cross applesauce. I have the whole set recorded in my voice memos. Lastly, She Past Away in Berlin, 2018. One of my favorite bands. I’ll never forget how normie I felt there. So many mohawks.

In a previous interview you said one of your favorite albums is Untrue by Burial, which is also one of my favorite albums. I listen to it when I study.

You do? I feel like I can’t listen to it that much anymore. It puts me in a weird state. I used to listen to really corny four to the floor techno when I was studying. Nothing got me more concentrated than that. I literally had a techno playlist called “helping me concentrate.”

What is another one of your all-time favorite albums?

I feel like I talk about this all the time, but Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonna. I listened to it literally right when it came out, so I feel like I was in the moment with it. It’s so funny because I think one of my favorite genres ever is Italo disco. I’m such a nerd about it and I realize that she pulled a lot from that. But I only really got into Italo disco in college. So it was weird to listen to something as a kid and then as an adult kind of gather what she was influenced by. It’s so cool and very inspiring to me. That whole time it was under my nose.

Who are some other artists that you’ve been listening to that are coming up right now?

Fuck that’s a hard one because I’m not listening to many brand new artists as much as I am older stuff–but I’m excited about Jeune Morty and obviously Cece Natalie.

Looking through your SoundCloud following, I saw you’re into some hardcore-adjacent DJs I also like, like alirq, DJ g2g, and DJ Fingerblast. Do you have a favorite hardcore track or artist?

Someone who I was really into who really influenced me with using samples and stuff like that is DJ David Goblin. He’s from this Brussels label called PRR! PRR! NOUVEAU LABEL. I haven’t listened to him in a long time, but he goes so hard. All of his songs are kind of goblin themed and really hardcore. It would have been cool to see him live. He would have goblins and stuff like that. It’s really funny. I don’t know anyone else who’s made shit like him. So shout out DJ David Goblin.

You’ve talked about how well researched Gossip Girl is. There’s this moment when Rufus can’t go to this gala with Lily because he has tickets to go see the Magnetic Fields concert. I just think it’s so funny.

Wait, what season is that?

It’s four or five.

You know what’s funny is I keep asking myself when am I going to restart it? And then I put it on and start from the beginning. I need to start where I begin to forget things because I’ve seen the pilot maybe a hundred times.

Do you have a favorite random cameo or favorite fashion bit or a random cultural reference from the show?

There’s this one I think they’re at some coffee shop near NYU and Lady Gaga was performing and I’m like what the fuck is going on? Also that episode where Florence and the Machine performed at the ball. What I love is there were a few episodes that they dedicated only to one artist. Frank Ocean was one of them.

One thing that jumpscared me was when they’re at some gala and “Celesteica” by Crystal Castle starts playing.

Yes that was crazy. I had never listened to new Cindy Lauper and then they played this song called “Echo.” That show’s put me on to a lot of stuff.

You released two versions of “Something to Hold Onto,” a harder and a softer one. Which version do you personally prefer, and which one did you expect people to gravitate toward more?

I like the softer one more. It started out as the softer one. I’m really picky and a perfectionist with vocal stuff. I’ll do a lot of takes for certain songs and sit there for so long. It was one of the first times releasing a song where I didn’t redo it. It was the first take and then I ended up chopping it up and I was like, fuck I don’t want to leave that stuff behind. So then I just dropped both. I knew that people would like the harder one more. But the softer one is actually one of my favorite tracks of mine.

Where does that iconic “harder” sound that pops up throughout your songs come from?

I found it while making a lot of mixes and listening to DJ David Goblin. It came from a long, really corny YouTube compilation, about 30 minutes, of DJ/MC clips, all from one guy. That’s where I got it. I tried to find it again and I can’t fucking find it. Thank god I downloaded the whole thing. There’s a lot more from that same compilation that I’ve used that doesn’t say “harder.” There are other bits, and I’ve also used tags where me or Lucio, who I work with, will say something and pitch it down. But the “harder” one is from that.

Do you like witchhouse music?

I do. I remember the first time I heard “Trapdoor” from Salem. It was in that movie Place Beyond the Pines and they’re like walking into the house party and I was like whoa. It was fucking crazy. I don’t know many newer witchhouse artists but I do feel like I find a lot of random AI generated Russian songs like witchhouse songs. There’s this one guy called △Sco△. He has some really good songs that I’ve downloaded because I wanted to DJ them.

Where do you see this whole electroclash thing going right now? I kind of hate using that word but it’s a necessary semantic evil.

Well, it’s a real word. Where do I see it going? I think people are going to get tired of new renditions of it. I don’t know any artists now where I could see them doing that forever. I feel like they’re chasing something and not sitting with it. There’s nothing holding a candle to the OGs anyways.

I read that you’re planning to record your next project in Sweden. You’ve worked with Swedish producers like Varg and Drain Gang producers like Woesum and Young Sherman. What was that collaboration process like?

Me and Woesum were talking online for a while and he was probably the first person that really believed in me and wanted to work. I really cherish that relationship. It was at a time when I was listening to Blue Summer so much. Every day I would just play it start to finish over and over again. I would send him vocals all the time.

That’s sick. I feel like they have such a strong like ear for collaborations and pulse on what’s interesting. I love that Gud and Rx Papi record

Yes and then also there was Victory Music, that project with RealYungPhil? I listened to that a lot last year. I love that project and they collaborate so well.

I’ve randomly seen Real Yung Phil when he performed at my frat house. It was like right after Victory Music came on.

Wow. That’s so cool. I feel like colleges know what’s up. At NYU they’ve had SOPHIE play in 2015. They had a lot of great acts play. UCLA too now.

What is the best meal you’ve ever had in your life?

My sister’s persian food. She makes the best gheymeh and kashk bademjan I’ve ever had in my life! Which says a lot.

What’s a small luxury or daily ritual that you swear by?

I have a lot. I spray my face throughout the day with anything. I have these empty spray bottles and I’ll just put tap water and rose water in there. I like to spray my face all day long. Tea every night. I need to get a bigger cup though because I drink it too fast. I do a mix of dandelions and then I put peppermint in there. Now I’m like a real adult because I bring tea on my travels. I have them in my purse and stuff.

Fashion tends to translate well to new forms of media; when glossy print or the television arrived, houses immediately knew how to use them to distribute their brand and products. The arrival of the internet was different. An entirely new medium arrived before rules were set, and fashion houses scrambled to find the best way to utilize the technology that was changing the way people consumed information. The result was a renaissance in brand creativity. A wave of early websites were released in the early 00s by various fashion houses, and set a standard that today’s websites fail to live up to.

In the early days of the internet, fashion houses approached websites as a creative medium, where the new digital architecture afforded new modes of design and expression. Sites were seen as storytelling devices whose ultimate goal was to cultivate a meaningful branded experience, rather than sell a product.

Today, the websites of those same houses have homogenized and dulled. Open the online store of any major brand, and you will be met with sleek drop-down menus and video banners lifted from store displays.

This is because today’s websites are obsessed with something that the websites of the past never even considered: converting sales. Contemporary sites’ purpose is to sell the consumer a product with as little friction as possible. Customers become an array of data points, and websites become vehicles for transactions. The goal is volume. When, rarely, we do see e-comm creativity today, it comes in the form of temporary initiatives that function as marketing devices to be distributed on social media.

As a result, brand and sales have become functionally synonymous. The early e-comm era of fashion retail reminds us that it wasn’t always this way. In addition to being cool to look at, these archival websites show us how far brand creativity has fallen, and suggest how it might be restored.

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In 1998, Helmut Lang was among the first designers to recognize what digital capabilities meant for brands. “We’re in the midst of a technological revolution,” he said, “we all know it, we talk about it, but we have to live it.”

Lang proceeded to scrap his New York runway show, instead sending buyers and critics a metallic gold CD-ROM of the season’s material. The disc contained some eighty-one looks from his Fall/Winter collection, and copies of the same material were distributed on the brand’s simple website. This was the first seasonal presentation to leverage the internet as a vehicle for mass distribution. Critical response was immediate and negative.

Shortly after Lang’s stunt, other luxury powerhouses followed his turn to the internet. By the early 2000s, global brands such as Prada and Issey Miyake had established online presences. Aesthetic inspiration was drawn from Information Age optimism, using the novel affordances of browsers to employ music, layered overlay, and Flash-integrated video. An archetypal motif across early sites was the intentional use of pop-ups, repurposing them as a formal storytelling device. Designs like these celebrated the new medium of the internet as much as they attempted to communicate a message.

In 2000, Dutch architecture firm OMA partnered with long-time collaborator Prada to prototype Prada Vomit, an website that hit visitors with barrage of pop-ups featuring everything from Prada runway content to vintage bondage imagery. The site was designed to celebrate the superfluidity of the internet while maintaining the curatorial codes of the house. It satirized the new and chaotic access to images and data. This was an early installment of the brand’s ongoing campaign Real Fantasies, which uses collage and vintage imagery to reimagine the traditional lookbook digitally.

Issey Miyake’s early websites also drew on self-referential browser imagery such as the pop-up. Reading as a directory, the site archived presentations of runway shows from Spring/Summer 2002 onwards. Each presentation redirects to a pop-up window featuring video representations of the runway using avatars and animated imagery, demonstrating an advanced use of motion effects and green-screen. While seemingly minimal, altering the runway show’s representation in this way destabilized previous distribution patterns. Instead of passively receiving a highly polished and static narrative, Issey Miyake’s website put the audience in a position of narrative agency, making them active participants in ‘showing’ themselves the collection.

Maison Margiela’s website during this time has similarities to Miyake’s. Its file directory design was intuitive for the early internet user, borrowing from Windows XP and other operating systems from the era. Collections, store information, and archives are neatly enclosed in folders for the user to explore. Earlier this year, Margiela recalled the era with the “Folders” campaign, which displayed archives and working documents in a similar file-based fashion.

Often, brands skipped elaborate website architecture in favor of the still image. For Number Nine, a simple logo and contact page said plenty. If Six Was Nine employed the still image to sequence a skeletal figure emerging from the homepage, paired with a textural darkwave track from Dead Can Dance.

On the other hand, some brands leveraged the internet’s new tools to the fullest in pursuit of immersive storytelling. The early Bathing Ape website is a distinct showcase of this maximalism. Before finally launching a browser site in 2008, the BAPE website solicited users to download an EXE file to run the webpage. Accompanied by a loop of the punchy Neek Rusher track “Year 3798,” the site overwhelms the user’s screen with colorful BAPE artifacts. Forcing a user to download something to unlock a digital experience is almost beyond belief in the contemporary digital climate, but Bapeheads at the time loved it. It was a beautiful microcosm of the brand’s culture in both form and function.

The growing interactive nature of the internet unlocked new modes of communication too. Livestreaming was one. Diesel was a first adopter for livestream technology within campaigns. “15 MB of Fame” was an impromptu hijacking stunt of the Diesel website by the two Myspace personalities “The Heidies”.

Having stolen the unreleased Diesel “Intimates” collection, the girls kidnapped Diesel employee Juan and staged a five-day hotel room lock-in, streamed in real time. The girls used MySpace to share the stream. Embedded polls allowed viewers to vote on a series of absurd ventures, such as waxing Juan’s legs or putting ice cubes in his pants. It was a huge, prophetic success.

At a high level, the internet’s greatest impact on the fashion industry was democratization. Where access had long been gatekept by industry insiders and guarded by the spatial exclusivity of the front row, websites and blogs gave the masses a new window. Cultural power that relied on the industry’s ability to control visibility weakened.

Those critics who were less than impressed with Helmut Lang’s 1998 presentation (including Anna Wintour, who called it a “huge mistake”) were immediately proven wrong. Condé Nast launched Style.com in 2000 to publish seasonal presentations in real time. Other platforms made by highly legitimized media organisations followed. Access to the front-row became available to anyone for the first time through digital imagery, laying the groundwork for early blogs on sites such as LiveJournal.

These new platforms were innovative in their own right. Founded by fashion photographer Nick Knight in 2000, SHOWstudio turned the internet into a live and participatory medium for fashion by streaming shoots, interviews and fashion shows. This ethos culminated in Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2010 presentation Plato’s Atlantis, widely understood as the first livestreamed fashion show.

SHOWStudio went further than optics, taking advantage of the internet to share practical and exclusive resources. The Design Download series invited users to participate as collaborators. Free sewing patterns were published by the likes of McQueen and Yohji Yamamoto (and are still being offered today). The distributive creative network folded users into the site of production for the first time.

On the early internet, the fashion industry was divided into two spheres: brand and retail. Retail sites like Net-a-Porter facilitated points-of-sale (which were trickier in these early internet days), and this allowed companies to experiment with design on brand websites that didn’t bear the burden of having to actually sell things.

But this binary distinction between brand and retail no longer exists online. In the later 2000s, it became easier for brands to host their own point-of-sale infrastructures due to the increasing sophistication of web development and online payment systems. Simultaneously, sites were optimized for search engine discovery. Storytelling, in turn, was ironed out. These changes bring us to the website as we know it today: an e-commerce vehicle.

Now, creative brand-oriented storytelling is primarily distributed on social media, where it is just one blip in a scrollable field of content. The inherent issue with content is that its success is determined by the algorithm. The algorithm sees users as metrics, rather than as individuals. As a result, fashion brands see us that way too.

When brands do still experiment creatively online, it is engineered for redistribution across social media channels. Take the Hermes website campaign Venture Beyond, featuring hand-drawn illustrations by Kit Klein. While beautiful, and construed by many as ideologically anti-AI, the site design was taken down after less than two weeks, just long enough to gain algorithmic traction on social media channels and generate discourse. Venture Beyond is one of many Trojan-style marketing vehicles sold as experiences.

As campaigns become more disposable, they continue to lose any native wit and meaning. This is because the terminal objective is not to mean anything, but to convert sales.

Early websites, because they could neither achieve virality nor sell product, were intended to distribute brand messages and experiences to the loyal visitor. These experiences could be messy, experimental, and unwieldy. Today, conversion optimization dictates that the site should be a clean, digital storefront. Frictionless design generates revenue, but it is characterless. Any tendency to pursue design that speaks to brand is sanded down in favor of accelerating the purchase funnel.

It isn’t to say that there haven’t been any positive developments. KidSuper and Basement Studio’s kidsuper.world won several awards in 2024 for engineering a dazzling, creativity-first design. Analog-style models like these don’t subscribe to contemporary e-commerce logic, and the site is difficult to intuitively navigate when it comes to actually purchasing an item, harkening back to earlier sites. These creative websites are small insurgencies, but point to an increasing consumer dissatisfaction with conversion-based web design.

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Looking back, early websites of brands in the industry are representative of a better era of retail. The magic that suffuses early websites is the intention; websites were somewhere you went. Storytelling and community connection were first principles for these designs.

These archival website offers a way forward for brands seeking to cure consumer fatigue in an age when commercial strategy encroaches on every aspect of human life. Early websites were not a golden age so much as a proof of concept. People respond to immersive brand experiences, and today they yearn for them more than ever. Hopefully, it isn’t too late for brands to learn this lesson.

Written by Hannah Morgan

Today’s Important Headlines

Met Gala prep: what you need to know

Here’s what you should know ahead of tonight’s “Costume Art” themed Met Gala: the dress code is “Fashion Is Art”; Jeff Bezos’s involvement has led critics to dub it “The Bezos Ball,” and there are protests planned; the guest list is a talking point: figures like Ye, Nicki M…

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Today’s Important Headlines

Saturday music roundup

Rather than doing the weekly releases, here’s a selection of some of the most interesting music-related content this week: Kodak Black performs live with a band for the first time; Alex G shares two new loosies from his last album on his unofficial Youtube channel; Brutalismus 3000 announces new album Harmony featuring Anya Taylor-Joy, Boys Noize & Underworld; Fred Again drops the longest Youtube video ever featuring every set from every show from usb002; Adam Friedland hosts Joanne Robertson for an unplugged performance.

Edward Skeletrix and North West’s music video brings together the entire underground

The video for the new track “Let’s Have Some Fun” features brief appearances from North West, Feng, Diddybop, Chris Heyn Jr., Lucy Bedroque, Sophia Stel, Sotce, Haskell, Martin, Emwell, 42ceo, JackZevra, Yuke, Joeyy, Quannic, and Baby Osama. Alongside the release, Skeletrix also dropped Body of Work, a project composed of 23 standalone singles rather than a traditional unified album. The project includes features from MOWALOLA, North West, and XXXTENTACION (the latter has since been removed). In a characteristically cryptic move, the video directs viewers to an address in London at 5pm on May 2nd.

The entire Venice Biennale jury has resigned

Just days before the Venice Biennale’s May 5 opening, the jury responsible for awarding the exhibition’s top prizes stepped down. In a lengthy public statement, the jurors said their decision stemmed from a refusal to evaluate countries currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, a stance that directly impacts Israel and Russia, whose participation had already drawn widespread criticism.

New Banksy sculpture in London

A new Banksy sculpture, complete with his signature etched into the base, has appeared in London. Installed in Waterloo Place, St. James, an area historically tied to celebrations of British imperialism and military power in the 19th century, the work satirizes blind imperialism, depicting a suited figure poised on the edge of a ledge, his face obscured by a flag.

Earl Sweatshirt and JPEGMAFIA are beefing

Last year JPEGMAFIA dissed Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist, criticizing them for making “the same fucking song for 20 years.” Yesterday, he doubled down on his position, claiming he sits at the top of experimental rap and saying he’ll “let other people try and figure out who they are at 40 or whatever.” The comments section of an Instagram post quickly turned into a back-and-forth between JPEGMAFIA and Earl Sweatshirt, with the two exchanging insults. Several of Earl’s longtime collaborators, including Jasper, Na-Kel Smith, and The Alchemist, also stepped in to respond.

An early look at first exhibitions at George Lucas’s museum (curated by Lucas himself) just dropped

Opening in September, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, founded by George Lucas, has offered a first look at its inaugural exhibitions, curated by Lucas himself. A longtime collector, Lucas has assembled more than 40,000 works over the past 50 years, forming the basis of the museum’s collection. The $1.5 billion institution is set to be expansive, spanning over 300,000 square feet with more than 30 galleries, and will feature works by artists such as Frida Kahlo and Norman Rockwell, alongside a significant focus on comic art and original materials from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, including matte paintings, original costumes, and character sketches.

Headline curation and words by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail)

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Today’s inspiration supplement. Click through to view.

From The Archive

An extra piece of content from the Welcome Archive for Magazine subscribers only.

A young fox struck by a car while hunting a mourning dove

Classifieds

Exciting opportunities, employment and otherwise

LVMH — Inside LVMH Certificate Program (Global / Online)

LVMH has opened registration for the next round of its INSIDE LVMH Certificate, an online learning program offering insights into the luxury industry and the inner workings of LVMH. In just ~30 hours of coursework, participants gain foundational knowledge of luxury brand strategy, craftsmanship, and business operations, alongside a certificate for professional development.

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Sofia Coppola x Decentralized Pictures — Short Film Award for Emerging Directors (Global)

$20,000 funding initiative supporting an emerging filmmaker’s short film, alongside mentorship, marketing support, and distribution guidance. Designed to help new directors move from concept to finished work with industry backing in an increasingly competitive indie landscape. Ideal for early-career filmmakers with a strong short film idea or project ready for production.

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Genius — Manager, Artist & Label Relations (New York, NY / Los Angeles, CA)

Full-time role acting as the primary liaison between Genius and artists, labels, and management teams. Responsibilities include artist bookings, product rollout support, campaign development, and cross-functional collaboration across video, marketing, and product teams. Strong experience in music industry artist relations required.

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It was another month of extraordinarily high internet usage for the Welcome team. We discovered, as always, a wealth of art, artists, and cultural ephemera. And just as we have for the past two months (see here and here), we assembled our favorites into a curated list.

Our April Discoveries run the gamut of medium: statues, music, paintings, digital works, joint sculpture, PowerPoint video games, sniper training BTS, and more.

We hope you enjoy the fruits of our scrolling.

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Joint sculptures by Cody Von Gogh

Canadian artist Cody Von Gogh describes himself as a “Creative Joint Roller.” For the past decade, he’s been crafting intricate joint sculptures that go far beyond the classic cross joint, assembling fully realized figures and objects entirely from rolling papers and weed. He has created pieces for Snoop Dogg and Machine Gun Kelly. Some of our favorites include this 94 gram dragon sculpture and his recent Shutterfly sculpture from My Little Pony.

Polaroids from 1979-1981 by H.R. Giger

Swiss artist H. R. Giger’s series of Polaroids from 1979–1981 are like if Nan Goldin’s intimacy met David Cronenberg’s unnervingly corporeal imagination. The collection blends erotic party photography, deranged self-portraits, and alien fetish imagery into a haunting visual archive. At the time, Ridley Scott had commissioned Giger to design the creatures and sets for Alien after discovering his biomechanical horror book Necronomicon. One of the Polaroids notably features the iconic Alien head and tail repurposed as cyborg-like sex props between two women.

Y-3 F50 “Beast Pack”

This January, Y-3 rereleased one of the rarest Adidas designs ever made: the 2006 F50 Beast Pack, originally launched ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in an ultra-limited run of just 1,000 pairs, which were packaged in ornate cages. This time around, the legendary football boot was reworked into sneakers in 4 versions: Dragon, Tiger, Eagle and Wolf. As a bonus, check out Y-3 and Adidas’ recent collaboration with Mercedes-AMG: a futuristic moto-inspired sneaker-heel hybrid previewed earlier this year.

Outlaws for Life by Subraiana

Swedish artist and knitwear designer Subraiana’s latest work is made entirely of mohair and yarn. Meticulously assembled over the course of two months, the piece depicts two gay (according to the artist) cowboys, and is an ode to Red Dead Redemption 2. The concept began as pixel art in Photoshop, which was then translated into a knitted canvas. Using a technique called “duplicate stitch,” Subraiana hand-embroidered each of the 13,500 pixels individually.

BTS photos of USMC sniper training

US Marine Corps Scout Sniper training involves a series of rigorous high-attrition protocols. Pictured here (shared by the USMC Scout Sniper Association) is a rare look at one such stealth training exercise. Trainees are dressed in ghillie suits (specialized camouflage garments) and engaged in a series of stealth maneuvers.

Faded phone cases by Jeton Bakalli

Jeton Bakalli is a New York based Albanian photographer, film director, and creative director. Most of his photography is model-focused portraiture (he does most of his photo work for the fashion industry), but earlier this month he posted this image of three iPhones of various generations in old yellowing cases. Bakalli is also currently working on a book project title The Crisis.

3 new Dean Blunt songs from 3 different aliases

After a drought, Dean Blunt has returned with a surge of releases across three of his projects: The Crying Nudes’ “Nothing Surprise Me Anymore,” Dean Blunt’s “478 freestyle,” and a full EP titled ICL under Babyfather.

Fiberglass statues by Ninghui Kokayi

While technically originally posted in March, we discovered these fiberglass statues in the first days of April. Created by designer and creator Ninghui Kokayi, these sculptures are inset with lights that illuminate their material, creating illuminated figures. Both have a kinetic energy, frozen mid-pose or dance-move.

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Every year, Milan Design Week gathers the first class of contemporary design into one city for the weekend, and floods all of our social feeds with images, professionally photographed, of the premier pieces.

But the experience in-person is different. So instead of being content with touched-…

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