CREATIVE SuGAR
issue debut
2 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
C O N TA C T u S
infocreat ive-sugarnet
a lway S S e e k i n g w r i t e r S p h oto g r a p h e r S
S t y l i S t S D e S i g n e r S p r amp a D f o l k S
Brian Pangilinanphotographer christophergreenwriterclarencesingletonStylist Katarinasmirnovawriter
KennethLundquistJrwriter Marilynrechtwritergavinreaphotographer tiffanyatkinsphotographer LauraBluherphotographer amp writer sherahJonesStylist KendrickZachcabeywriter creative-sugarnet amp facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine amp twittercomcreative_sugar
sabrinascotteditorgraphic Designer
copy2012 Creative Sugar Magazine al l r ights to art writ ing photos designs and copyrights are the property of the art ist al l images in this publ ication may not be used without the art ist rsquos consent
frontcoverampBacKcover
photosBy gav inrea
styLedBy sherahJones
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 3
E d I T O Rfrom the
Brian Pangilinanphotographer christophergreenwriterclarencesingletonStylist Katarinasmirnovawriter
KennethLundquistJrwriter Marilynrechtwritergavinreaphotographer tiffanyatkinsphotographer LauraBluherphotographer amp writer sherahJonesStylist KendrickZachcabeywriter creative-sugarnet amp facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine amp twittercomcreative_sugar
welcome to the Summer 2012 issue debut of Creative Sugar magazine we have had a blast coming together and work-ing on this issue Simply put i hope this is the beginning of a beautiful relat ionship formed in the name of art i ts process and its inspiration
Creative Sugar is a magazine created by art ists for art ists and supporters i t celebrates edgy creativity in al l of i ts forms be-cause real ly i t rsquos what we want Creative Sugar is a publ ication where you can get your f ix on a col lection of sweet creative genius it pays tr ibute to the tangible ambiance of the print magazine experience we al l remember as we evolve in a digi-tal age
we have a core group of Contributors inside this issue but are also seeking creative talent to help us out Send an email to me at Sabrinacreative-sugarnet and be sure to ldquolikerdquo us on our facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine page in order to get updates on excit ing developments
as we progress and grow we would l ike to create and give a broader reach creating dialoque among the audience and we want to include music features and as wel l as our current mix of fashion and commentary with spotl ights on some very inspired art ist ic talent
please Join us on this excit ing platform for emerging art ists and vehicle for creative expression
Creative Sugar you know you want it
Sabrina Scott
editorgraphic Designer
4 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
the CONTRIBuTORSalbertBrianpangilinan photographer - Jersey City nJ from a young age i was groomed and trained by my father to be a photographer My earliest memories as a child are of the darkroom and developing along side my father i was given a camera before i even understood the process Many years later Irsquom still learning to capture light and the fleeting moments of life with my cam-era His work can be seen at httpdelaobscuracom and httpbrianpangilinan500pxcom
christophergreenWriter-london england
clarencesingletonstylist - Patterson NJ I started out in the fashion scene in 2004 as an assistant to a Fashion Editor Later after a couple of classes at FIT I began styling musicianrsquos for music videos and promotional purposes In 2008 I worked backstage for Mercedes Benz fashion week i prepared looks for oscar de la rental phillip lim Joseph altuzarra and oth-ers i am truly thankful My philosophy in life is never stop inspiring to grow the moon is the limit httpclarencestylisttumblrcom
KennethLundquistJrWriter - new york nyKenneth aka KLJ is a professional actor model performance artist music composer film amp stage director pub-lished poet and galleried artist His short film and music video ldquoOhayoo Ohiordquo won the lsquoCoolest Flickrsquo award from the Silk City flick fest in 2010 of which he produced and was the lead actor it was screened regionally and became an internet sensation He has been a featured canvas amp sculpture artist at Real Art Ways and ArtSpace Creativity is his Universe httpwwwfacebookcomkljinc
KatarinasminovaWriter - Stockholm Sweden
Christopher is an abstract painter photographer graphic designer living and working in london but originally from Manchester He does ldquolive paintingrdquo an experience on Facebook where conversations and comments flow among friends as he paints and develops his work His work can be seen at httpartgallerycoukartistchristopher_green
hi irsquom katarina Currently i am residing in Stockholm the capital of Sweden up north in europe i was born Moscow Russia and Irsquove also spent close to a decade in the USA My foremost passion is art but the way I inject this drug of mine I like to vary I have done painting collage theater and now Irsquom into film What stays sustained through my various flames of desire is the essence of story and I do also have an affinity for language and the art of words Shortly telling a story or hearing one is what i burn for be it through music on stage in a painting or to a friend I feel this is what makes life astounding
gavinreaphotographer - new york ny Gavin spent much of his youth on Sydneyrsquos beaches surfing and skateboarding After completing school Gavin made adventures by travelling to Europe Mexico and North America There he first began using an old film SLR camera to document his travels and his interest in photography flourished Upon returning to Australia Gavin continued his studies in Advertising and Fine Art photography During this time Gavin assisted some of Sydneyrsquos best fashion photographers With time he began to take his own jobs shooting and his formal introduction as a fashion photographer came after editorials for acclaimed large-format magazines Oyster and ELLE Today Gavin resides in New York City but continues to document his travel and surfing adventures in between jobs for clients including TESLA MOTORS SONY MUSIC and REVLON
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 5
Marilynrecht Writer- new york nyMarilyn earned several prizes at Queens College for her poetry and drama She participated in the East Village perfor-mance art scene during the lsquo80s and lsquo90s while contributing to local arts publications In 1988 she produced a short play entitled Cowboys and in 1996 her poetry book She Must Have Been a Giant was published Marilyn has worked for corporate and private interests as a ghost writer copywriter editor proofreader digital production artist and studio manager She is currently a senior medical editor Marilyn can be reached at mazrechtgmailcom her work can be seen at httpfictioncollectiveblogspotcom201008manleys-and-me-by-marilyn and httpnycfotocomindexphphttpexaminercomcoffeeshop-in-new-yorkmarilyn-recht
sherahJonesstylist-Brooklyn nySherah is a fashion stylistbloggermerchandiser living in Brooklyn ny originally from Miami fl Sherah has worked with celebrity models stylists designers and talent including Jil Sander (+J) ginta lapina (women Model Manage-ment) Jacquelyn Jablonski (Supreme Management) Jason Sudeikis Sabina Schreder and Katie Burnett Check out her work at httpsherahstylisttumblrcom and httpsherahstylistporttumblrcom
KenrickldquoiLikeZachrdquocabeyWriter - Brooklyn nyKenrick Zachary Cabey studied at NYUrsquos Steinhardt School He was born in Brooklyn NY as the sixth child of immigrant parents from Montserrat Kenrickrsquos became committed to exploring emerging and undiscovered artists after receiving sage advice from Gil-Scott Heron who told Kenrick to ldquogo out and share with people the beautiful things happening in this worldrdquo The memory of his late mother Sonia a performance poet and visual artist based in the Bronx has also strongly influenced this position Kenrick has served as a producer and host for ldquoThe Traveling Wild Showrdquo a live recurring exhibition of new music poetry and visual art by New York artists In 2011 curated his first group art show entitled ldquoLike Me Nowrdquo and produces art music and literary exhibitions around the city He can be reached at ilikezachyahoocom
Laura Bluher is a Brooklyn-based artist and a recent graduate of the Photography amp Imaging Department of New York Universityrsquos Tisch School of the Arts Her latest creative endeavor Tierra familiar a photographic project about family and farming rituals in Pinar del Riacuteo Cuba has been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the Calumet Gallery in New York City She is currently working on several photographic and research projects based in Latin America Contact her at lbluhergmailcom
LauraBluherWriterampphotographer - Brooklyn ny
tiffanyatkinsphotographer-Brooklyn nyI was born in the Deep South and raised by diplomatic gypsies Irsquove traveled the world and landed in NYC Irsquom cur-rently an art student at Pratt Institute studying Communications Design and Graphic Design I live in Brooklyn
issuedEBuT
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
2 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
C O N TA C T u S
infocreat ive-sugarnet
a lway S S e e k i n g w r i t e r S p h oto g r a p h e r S
S t y l i S t S D e S i g n e r S p r amp a D f o l k S
Brian Pangilinanphotographer christophergreenwriterclarencesingletonStylist Katarinasmirnovawriter
KennethLundquistJrwriter Marilynrechtwritergavinreaphotographer tiffanyatkinsphotographer LauraBluherphotographer amp writer sherahJonesStylist KendrickZachcabeywriter creative-sugarnet amp facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine amp twittercomcreative_sugar
sabrinascotteditorgraphic Designer
copy2012 Creative Sugar Magazine al l r ights to art writ ing photos designs and copyrights are the property of the art ist al l images in this publ ication may not be used without the art ist rsquos consent
frontcoverampBacKcover
photosBy gav inrea
styLedBy sherahJones
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 3
E d I T O Rfrom the
Brian Pangilinanphotographer christophergreenwriterclarencesingletonStylist Katarinasmirnovawriter
KennethLundquistJrwriter Marilynrechtwritergavinreaphotographer tiffanyatkinsphotographer LauraBluherphotographer amp writer sherahJonesStylist KendrickZachcabeywriter creative-sugarnet amp facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine amp twittercomcreative_sugar
welcome to the Summer 2012 issue debut of Creative Sugar magazine we have had a blast coming together and work-ing on this issue Simply put i hope this is the beginning of a beautiful relat ionship formed in the name of art i ts process and its inspiration
Creative Sugar is a magazine created by art ists for art ists and supporters i t celebrates edgy creativity in al l of i ts forms be-cause real ly i t rsquos what we want Creative Sugar is a publ ication where you can get your f ix on a col lection of sweet creative genius it pays tr ibute to the tangible ambiance of the print magazine experience we al l remember as we evolve in a digi-tal age
we have a core group of Contributors inside this issue but are also seeking creative talent to help us out Send an email to me at Sabrinacreative-sugarnet and be sure to ldquolikerdquo us on our facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine page in order to get updates on excit ing developments
as we progress and grow we would l ike to create and give a broader reach creating dialoque among the audience and we want to include music features and as wel l as our current mix of fashion and commentary with spotl ights on some very inspired art ist ic talent
please Join us on this excit ing platform for emerging art ists and vehicle for creative expression
Creative Sugar you know you want it
Sabrina Scott
editorgraphic Designer
4 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
the CONTRIBuTORSalbertBrianpangilinan photographer - Jersey City nJ from a young age i was groomed and trained by my father to be a photographer My earliest memories as a child are of the darkroom and developing along side my father i was given a camera before i even understood the process Many years later Irsquom still learning to capture light and the fleeting moments of life with my cam-era His work can be seen at httpdelaobscuracom and httpbrianpangilinan500pxcom
christophergreenWriter-london england
clarencesingletonstylist - Patterson NJ I started out in the fashion scene in 2004 as an assistant to a Fashion Editor Later after a couple of classes at FIT I began styling musicianrsquos for music videos and promotional purposes In 2008 I worked backstage for Mercedes Benz fashion week i prepared looks for oscar de la rental phillip lim Joseph altuzarra and oth-ers i am truly thankful My philosophy in life is never stop inspiring to grow the moon is the limit httpclarencestylisttumblrcom
KennethLundquistJrWriter - new york nyKenneth aka KLJ is a professional actor model performance artist music composer film amp stage director pub-lished poet and galleried artist His short film and music video ldquoOhayoo Ohiordquo won the lsquoCoolest Flickrsquo award from the Silk City flick fest in 2010 of which he produced and was the lead actor it was screened regionally and became an internet sensation He has been a featured canvas amp sculpture artist at Real Art Ways and ArtSpace Creativity is his Universe httpwwwfacebookcomkljinc
KatarinasminovaWriter - Stockholm Sweden
Christopher is an abstract painter photographer graphic designer living and working in london but originally from Manchester He does ldquolive paintingrdquo an experience on Facebook where conversations and comments flow among friends as he paints and develops his work His work can be seen at httpartgallerycoukartistchristopher_green
hi irsquom katarina Currently i am residing in Stockholm the capital of Sweden up north in europe i was born Moscow Russia and Irsquove also spent close to a decade in the USA My foremost passion is art but the way I inject this drug of mine I like to vary I have done painting collage theater and now Irsquom into film What stays sustained through my various flames of desire is the essence of story and I do also have an affinity for language and the art of words Shortly telling a story or hearing one is what i burn for be it through music on stage in a painting or to a friend I feel this is what makes life astounding
gavinreaphotographer - new york ny Gavin spent much of his youth on Sydneyrsquos beaches surfing and skateboarding After completing school Gavin made adventures by travelling to Europe Mexico and North America There he first began using an old film SLR camera to document his travels and his interest in photography flourished Upon returning to Australia Gavin continued his studies in Advertising and Fine Art photography During this time Gavin assisted some of Sydneyrsquos best fashion photographers With time he began to take his own jobs shooting and his formal introduction as a fashion photographer came after editorials for acclaimed large-format magazines Oyster and ELLE Today Gavin resides in New York City but continues to document his travel and surfing adventures in between jobs for clients including TESLA MOTORS SONY MUSIC and REVLON
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 5
Marilynrecht Writer- new york nyMarilyn earned several prizes at Queens College for her poetry and drama She participated in the East Village perfor-mance art scene during the lsquo80s and lsquo90s while contributing to local arts publications In 1988 she produced a short play entitled Cowboys and in 1996 her poetry book She Must Have Been a Giant was published Marilyn has worked for corporate and private interests as a ghost writer copywriter editor proofreader digital production artist and studio manager She is currently a senior medical editor Marilyn can be reached at mazrechtgmailcom her work can be seen at httpfictioncollectiveblogspotcom201008manleys-and-me-by-marilyn and httpnycfotocomindexphphttpexaminercomcoffeeshop-in-new-yorkmarilyn-recht
sherahJonesstylist-Brooklyn nySherah is a fashion stylistbloggermerchandiser living in Brooklyn ny originally from Miami fl Sherah has worked with celebrity models stylists designers and talent including Jil Sander (+J) ginta lapina (women Model Manage-ment) Jacquelyn Jablonski (Supreme Management) Jason Sudeikis Sabina Schreder and Katie Burnett Check out her work at httpsherahstylisttumblrcom and httpsherahstylistporttumblrcom
KenrickldquoiLikeZachrdquocabeyWriter - Brooklyn nyKenrick Zachary Cabey studied at NYUrsquos Steinhardt School He was born in Brooklyn NY as the sixth child of immigrant parents from Montserrat Kenrickrsquos became committed to exploring emerging and undiscovered artists after receiving sage advice from Gil-Scott Heron who told Kenrick to ldquogo out and share with people the beautiful things happening in this worldrdquo The memory of his late mother Sonia a performance poet and visual artist based in the Bronx has also strongly influenced this position Kenrick has served as a producer and host for ldquoThe Traveling Wild Showrdquo a live recurring exhibition of new music poetry and visual art by New York artists In 2011 curated his first group art show entitled ldquoLike Me Nowrdquo and produces art music and literary exhibitions around the city He can be reached at ilikezachyahoocom
Laura Bluher is a Brooklyn-based artist and a recent graduate of the Photography amp Imaging Department of New York Universityrsquos Tisch School of the Arts Her latest creative endeavor Tierra familiar a photographic project about family and farming rituals in Pinar del Riacuteo Cuba has been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the Calumet Gallery in New York City She is currently working on several photographic and research projects based in Latin America Contact her at lbluhergmailcom
LauraBluherWriterampphotographer - Brooklyn ny
tiffanyatkinsphotographer-Brooklyn nyI was born in the Deep South and raised by diplomatic gypsies Irsquove traveled the world and landed in NYC Irsquom cur-rently an art student at Pratt Institute studying Communications Design and Graphic Design I live in Brooklyn
issuedEBuT
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 3
E d I T O Rfrom the
Brian Pangilinanphotographer christophergreenwriterclarencesingletonStylist Katarinasmirnovawriter
KennethLundquistJrwriter Marilynrechtwritergavinreaphotographer tiffanyatkinsphotographer LauraBluherphotographer amp writer sherahJonesStylist KendrickZachcabeywriter creative-sugarnet amp facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine amp twittercomcreative_sugar
welcome to the Summer 2012 issue debut of Creative Sugar magazine we have had a blast coming together and work-ing on this issue Simply put i hope this is the beginning of a beautiful relat ionship formed in the name of art i ts process and its inspiration
Creative Sugar is a magazine created by art ists for art ists and supporters i t celebrates edgy creativity in al l of i ts forms be-cause real ly i t rsquos what we want Creative Sugar is a publ ication where you can get your f ix on a col lection of sweet creative genius it pays tr ibute to the tangible ambiance of the print magazine experience we al l remember as we evolve in a digi-tal age
we have a core group of Contributors inside this issue but are also seeking creative talent to help us out Send an email to me at Sabrinacreative-sugarnet and be sure to ldquolikerdquo us on our facebookcomcreativesugarmagazine page in order to get updates on excit ing developments
as we progress and grow we would l ike to create and give a broader reach creating dialoque among the audience and we want to include music features and as wel l as our current mix of fashion and commentary with spotl ights on some very inspired art ist ic talent
please Join us on this excit ing platform for emerging art ists and vehicle for creative expression
Creative Sugar you know you want it
Sabrina Scott
editorgraphic Designer
4 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
the CONTRIBuTORSalbertBrianpangilinan photographer - Jersey City nJ from a young age i was groomed and trained by my father to be a photographer My earliest memories as a child are of the darkroom and developing along side my father i was given a camera before i even understood the process Many years later Irsquom still learning to capture light and the fleeting moments of life with my cam-era His work can be seen at httpdelaobscuracom and httpbrianpangilinan500pxcom
christophergreenWriter-london england
clarencesingletonstylist - Patterson NJ I started out in the fashion scene in 2004 as an assistant to a Fashion Editor Later after a couple of classes at FIT I began styling musicianrsquos for music videos and promotional purposes In 2008 I worked backstage for Mercedes Benz fashion week i prepared looks for oscar de la rental phillip lim Joseph altuzarra and oth-ers i am truly thankful My philosophy in life is never stop inspiring to grow the moon is the limit httpclarencestylisttumblrcom
KennethLundquistJrWriter - new york nyKenneth aka KLJ is a professional actor model performance artist music composer film amp stage director pub-lished poet and galleried artist His short film and music video ldquoOhayoo Ohiordquo won the lsquoCoolest Flickrsquo award from the Silk City flick fest in 2010 of which he produced and was the lead actor it was screened regionally and became an internet sensation He has been a featured canvas amp sculpture artist at Real Art Ways and ArtSpace Creativity is his Universe httpwwwfacebookcomkljinc
KatarinasminovaWriter - Stockholm Sweden
Christopher is an abstract painter photographer graphic designer living and working in london but originally from Manchester He does ldquolive paintingrdquo an experience on Facebook where conversations and comments flow among friends as he paints and develops his work His work can be seen at httpartgallerycoukartistchristopher_green
hi irsquom katarina Currently i am residing in Stockholm the capital of Sweden up north in europe i was born Moscow Russia and Irsquove also spent close to a decade in the USA My foremost passion is art but the way I inject this drug of mine I like to vary I have done painting collage theater and now Irsquom into film What stays sustained through my various flames of desire is the essence of story and I do also have an affinity for language and the art of words Shortly telling a story or hearing one is what i burn for be it through music on stage in a painting or to a friend I feel this is what makes life astounding
gavinreaphotographer - new york ny Gavin spent much of his youth on Sydneyrsquos beaches surfing and skateboarding After completing school Gavin made adventures by travelling to Europe Mexico and North America There he first began using an old film SLR camera to document his travels and his interest in photography flourished Upon returning to Australia Gavin continued his studies in Advertising and Fine Art photography During this time Gavin assisted some of Sydneyrsquos best fashion photographers With time he began to take his own jobs shooting and his formal introduction as a fashion photographer came after editorials for acclaimed large-format magazines Oyster and ELLE Today Gavin resides in New York City but continues to document his travel and surfing adventures in between jobs for clients including TESLA MOTORS SONY MUSIC and REVLON
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 5
Marilynrecht Writer- new york nyMarilyn earned several prizes at Queens College for her poetry and drama She participated in the East Village perfor-mance art scene during the lsquo80s and lsquo90s while contributing to local arts publications In 1988 she produced a short play entitled Cowboys and in 1996 her poetry book She Must Have Been a Giant was published Marilyn has worked for corporate and private interests as a ghost writer copywriter editor proofreader digital production artist and studio manager She is currently a senior medical editor Marilyn can be reached at mazrechtgmailcom her work can be seen at httpfictioncollectiveblogspotcom201008manleys-and-me-by-marilyn and httpnycfotocomindexphphttpexaminercomcoffeeshop-in-new-yorkmarilyn-recht
sherahJonesstylist-Brooklyn nySherah is a fashion stylistbloggermerchandiser living in Brooklyn ny originally from Miami fl Sherah has worked with celebrity models stylists designers and talent including Jil Sander (+J) ginta lapina (women Model Manage-ment) Jacquelyn Jablonski (Supreme Management) Jason Sudeikis Sabina Schreder and Katie Burnett Check out her work at httpsherahstylisttumblrcom and httpsherahstylistporttumblrcom
KenrickldquoiLikeZachrdquocabeyWriter - Brooklyn nyKenrick Zachary Cabey studied at NYUrsquos Steinhardt School He was born in Brooklyn NY as the sixth child of immigrant parents from Montserrat Kenrickrsquos became committed to exploring emerging and undiscovered artists after receiving sage advice from Gil-Scott Heron who told Kenrick to ldquogo out and share with people the beautiful things happening in this worldrdquo The memory of his late mother Sonia a performance poet and visual artist based in the Bronx has also strongly influenced this position Kenrick has served as a producer and host for ldquoThe Traveling Wild Showrdquo a live recurring exhibition of new music poetry and visual art by New York artists In 2011 curated his first group art show entitled ldquoLike Me Nowrdquo and produces art music and literary exhibitions around the city He can be reached at ilikezachyahoocom
Laura Bluher is a Brooklyn-based artist and a recent graduate of the Photography amp Imaging Department of New York Universityrsquos Tisch School of the Arts Her latest creative endeavor Tierra familiar a photographic project about family and farming rituals in Pinar del Riacuteo Cuba has been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the Calumet Gallery in New York City She is currently working on several photographic and research projects based in Latin America Contact her at lbluhergmailcom
LauraBluherWriterampphotographer - Brooklyn ny
tiffanyatkinsphotographer-Brooklyn nyI was born in the Deep South and raised by diplomatic gypsies Irsquove traveled the world and landed in NYC Irsquom cur-rently an art student at Pratt Institute studying Communications Design and Graphic Design I live in Brooklyn
issuedEBuT
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
4 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
the CONTRIBuTORSalbertBrianpangilinan photographer - Jersey City nJ from a young age i was groomed and trained by my father to be a photographer My earliest memories as a child are of the darkroom and developing along side my father i was given a camera before i even understood the process Many years later Irsquom still learning to capture light and the fleeting moments of life with my cam-era His work can be seen at httpdelaobscuracom and httpbrianpangilinan500pxcom
christophergreenWriter-london england
clarencesingletonstylist - Patterson NJ I started out in the fashion scene in 2004 as an assistant to a Fashion Editor Later after a couple of classes at FIT I began styling musicianrsquos for music videos and promotional purposes In 2008 I worked backstage for Mercedes Benz fashion week i prepared looks for oscar de la rental phillip lim Joseph altuzarra and oth-ers i am truly thankful My philosophy in life is never stop inspiring to grow the moon is the limit httpclarencestylisttumblrcom
KennethLundquistJrWriter - new york nyKenneth aka KLJ is a professional actor model performance artist music composer film amp stage director pub-lished poet and galleried artist His short film and music video ldquoOhayoo Ohiordquo won the lsquoCoolest Flickrsquo award from the Silk City flick fest in 2010 of which he produced and was the lead actor it was screened regionally and became an internet sensation He has been a featured canvas amp sculpture artist at Real Art Ways and ArtSpace Creativity is his Universe httpwwwfacebookcomkljinc
KatarinasminovaWriter - Stockholm Sweden
Christopher is an abstract painter photographer graphic designer living and working in london but originally from Manchester He does ldquolive paintingrdquo an experience on Facebook where conversations and comments flow among friends as he paints and develops his work His work can be seen at httpartgallerycoukartistchristopher_green
hi irsquom katarina Currently i am residing in Stockholm the capital of Sweden up north in europe i was born Moscow Russia and Irsquove also spent close to a decade in the USA My foremost passion is art but the way I inject this drug of mine I like to vary I have done painting collage theater and now Irsquom into film What stays sustained through my various flames of desire is the essence of story and I do also have an affinity for language and the art of words Shortly telling a story or hearing one is what i burn for be it through music on stage in a painting or to a friend I feel this is what makes life astounding
gavinreaphotographer - new york ny Gavin spent much of his youth on Sydneyrsquos beaches surfing and skateboarding After completing school Gavin made adventures by travelling to Europe Mexico and North America There he first began using an old film SLR camera to document his travels and his interest in photography flourished Upon returning to Australia Gavin continued his studies in Advertising and Fine Art photography During this time Gavin assisted some of Sydneyrsquos best fashion photographers With time he began to take his own jobs shooting and his formal introduction as a fashion photographer came after editorials for acclaimed large-format magazines Oyster and ELLE Today Gavin resides in New York City but continues to document his travel and surfing adventures in between jobs for clients including TESLA MOTORS SONY MUSIC and REVLON
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 5
Marilynrecht Writer- new york nyMarilyn earned several prizes at Queens College for her poetry and drama She participated in the East Village perfor-mance art scene during the lsquo80s and lsquo90s while contributing to local arts publications In 1988 she produced a short play entitled Cowboys and in 1996 her poetry book She Must Have Been a Giant was published Marilyn has worked for corporate and private interests as a ghost writer copywriter editor proofreader digital production artist and studio manager She is currently a senior medical editor Marilyn can be reached at mazrechtgmailcom her work can be seen at httpfictioncollectiveblogspotcom201008manleys-and-me-by-marilyn and httpnycfotocomindexphphttpexaminercomcoffeeshop-in-new-yorkmarilyn-recht
sherahJonesstylist-Brooklyn nySherah is a fashion stylistbloggermerchandiser living in Brooklyn ny originally from Miami fl Sherah has worked with celebrity models stylists designers and talent including Jil Sander (+J) ginta lapina (women Model Manage-ment) Jacquelyn Jablonski (Supreme Management) Jason Sudeikis Sabina Schreder and Katie Burnett Check out her work at httpsherahstylisttumblrcom and httpsherahstylistporttumblrcom
KenrickldquoiLikeZachrdquocabeyWriter - Brooklyn nyKenrick Zachary Cabey studied at NYUrsquos Steinhardt School He was born in Brooklyn NY as the sixth child of immigrant parents from Montserrat Kenrickrsquos became committed to exploring emerging and undiscovered artists after receiving sage advice from Gil-Scott Heron who told Kenrick to ldquogo out and share with people the beautiful things happening in this worldrdquo The memory of his late mother Sonia a performance poet and visual artist based in the Bronx has also strongly influenced this position Kenrick has served as a producer and host for ldquoThe Traveling Wild Showrdquo a live recurring exhibition of new music poetry and visual art by New York artists In 2011 curated his first group art show entitled ldquoLike Me Nowrdquo and produces art music and literary exhibitions around the city He can be reached at ilikezachyahoocom
Laura Bluher is a Brooklyn-based artist and a recent graduate of the Photography amp Imaging Department of New York Universityrsquos Tisch School of the Arts Her latest creative endeavor Tierra familiar a photographic project about family and farming rituals in Pinar del Riacuteo Cuba has been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the Calumet Gallery in New York City She is currently working on several photographic and research projects based in Latin America Contact her at lbluhergmailcom
LauraBluherWriterampphotographer - Brooklyn ny
tiffanyatkinsphotographer-Brooklyn nyI was born in the Deep South and raised by diplomatic gypsies Irsquove traveled the world and landed in NYC Irsquom cur-rently an art student at Pratt Institute studying Communications Design and Graphic Design I live in Brooklyn
issuedEBuT
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 5
Marilynrecht Writer- new york nyMarilyn earned several prizes at Queens College for her poetry and drama She participated in the East Village perfor-mance art scene during the lsquo80s and lsquo90s while contributing to local arts publications In 1988 she produced a short play entitled Cowboys and in 1996 her poetry book She Must Have Been a Giant was published Marilyn has worked for corporate and private interests as a ghost writer copywriter editor proofreader digital production artist and studio manager She is currently a senior medical editor Marilyn can be reached at mazrechtgmailcom her work can be seen at httpfictioncollectiveblogspotcom201008manleys-and-me-by-marilyn and httpnycfotocomindexphphttpexaminercomcoffeeshop-in-new-yorkmarilyn-recht
sherahJonesstylist-Brooklyn nySherah is a fashion stylistbloggermerchandiser living in Brooklyn ny originally from Miami fl Sherah has worked with celebrity models stylists designers and talent including Jil Sander (+J) ginta lapina (women Model Manage-ment) Jacquelyn Jablonski (Supreme Management) Jason Sudeikis Sabina Schreder and Katie Burnett Check out her work at httpsherahstylisttumblrcom and httpsherahstylistporttumblrcom
KenrickldquoiLikeZachrdquocabeyWriter - Brooklyn nyKenrick Zachary Cabey studied at NYUrsquos Steinhardt School He was born in Brooklyn NY as the sixth child of immigrant parents from Montserrat Kenrickrsquos became committed to exploring emerging and undiscovered artists after receiving sage advice from Gil-Scott Heron who told Kenrick to ldquogo out and share with people the beautiful things happening in this worldrdquo The memory of his late mother Sonia a performance poet and visual artist based in the Bronx has also strongly influenced this position Kenrick has served as a producer and host for ldquoThe Traveling Wild Showrdquo a live recurring exhibition of new music poetry and visual art by New York artists In 2011 curated his first group art show entitled ldquoLike Me Nowrdquo and produces art music and literary exhibitions around the city He can be reached at ilikezachyahoocom
Laura Bluher is a Brooklyn-based artist and a recent graduate of the Photography amp Imaging Department of New York Universityrsquos Tisch School of the Arts Her latest creative endeavor Tierra familiar a photographic project about family and farming rituals in Pinar del Riacuteo Cuba has been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the Calumet Gallery in New York City She is currently working on several photographic and research projects based in Latin America Contact her at lbluhergmailcom
LauraBluherWriterampphotographer - Brooklyn ny
tiffanyatkinsphotographer-Brooklyn nyI was born in the Deep South and raised by diplomatic gypsies Irsquove traveled the world and landed in NYC Irsquom cur-rently an art student at Pratt Institute studying Communications Design and Graphic Design I live in Brooklyn
issuedEBuT
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
6 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
WhATrsquoS I N S I d E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
81014
20223435364050
a r t amp S w e D e nBY K ATA R I N A S M I R N O VA
E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
M e l i S S a r o B i nrsquoS p h oto g r a p h y
J e S S i C a S l a g l e a k a S l a g l e t r o nBy S a B r i n a S C ot t
B a D a S Sp h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n S t y l e D By C l a r e n C e S i n g e lto n
lo n D o n C a l l i n g By C h r i S g r e e n
g e n e r at i o n w h y By M a r i ly n r e C h t
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O N By i l i k e z a C h
N OT YO U R S A M O S A M OP H OTO G R A P H E R G AV I N R E AS t y l e D By S h e r a h J o n e S
B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 7
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20223435364050
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E T H A N B O I S V E R T A B S T R A C T PA I N T E R BY K E N N E T H LU N D Q U I S T J R
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B E YO N D TO U R I S M I N C U B ABY L AU R A B LU H E R
l e v i tat e p h oto By M e l i S S a r o B i n
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
8 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ok so i live in sweden now in Stockholm to be precise the capital and Sweden is really neat as in clean - not cool although it is cool too as in cold - not happening i shouldnrsquot be saying that that itrsquos not happening there are things happening in Swe-den i guess
we did have that one scandal in the art world i found pretty amusing and as often times these days in the media - very misconstrued The artist is Makode Linde and the location was World art Day at the Moderna Museet here in Stockholm The theme was fighting against censorship and for freedom of expression it was arranged by Swedish Artistsrsquo National Organisation who requested a num-ber of Swedish artists to bake cakes for a party held in itrsquos connection Now this is what I know of Makode linde afore hand (besides the fact that he already has a hella cool name) hersquos hot as hell i mean really cute and hot and cuthellipyou get the point
I saw him at this really neat (as in cool this time) New York - but still Euro-type artsy party with an young fashionable international crowd where drinks which was beer cans were sold via a ticket at the entrance due to the fact that they didnrsquot have a liquor license this is the epitome of cool in Stockholm it is then called a ldquoblack partyrdquo meaning that it is rdquoillegalrdquo and therefore yeah you guessed it really cool i have heard it been said that itrsquos only for people in the know i donrsquot know how that is or what they know all i know is that everyone seems to know of them maybe be-cause as most everything else these days it is adver-tised through Facebook
either way i was standing there talking with a rather clicheacute looking italian fellow lanky suave and at that particular moment pleasingly and appropriately so spoony But then appears Makode he had that famil-iar effect on me where for the moment time stood still and the man seemed to be exuding a light a form
of glow like he was an angel sent to me from god as soon as he had passed and i was back at that same party and i saw my italian friend for what he really was a euro trash whorsquos luster had been shadowed immediately i interro-gated my bestie Andy on all info on the man where upon andy blatantly stated rdquohersquos gayrdquo
imagine my shock - i cannot have it was intolerable and infuriating much like the reaction a lot of folks had to this latest rdquoart stuntrdquo he had later on i heard of him in the realm of art although not really art-related
you see he with company of some others was accused of an-imal cruelty at a nightclub he dressed as a magician staged a performance involving fish hens and chicken A couple of nightclub patrons felt for the animals and enthralled with concern they called the police who by the time they got there found the hens and chickens running around the night club likehellipyou knowhellipcrazy hens and chickens and so forth and while i understand the con-cern i couldnrsquot help but to be amused but ldquoin the name of world newsrdquo this was an outrage ap-parently this was not an outrage that would be his last
So back to the cake episode Makode linde created a cake in the shape of Ve-nus of willendorf in black essentially a naked black female body and he insert-ed his face through a box from underneath he painted on a black-face and as the first guest cut herself a piece Makode took off screaming a scream of pain that went on for an hour through several cuts of cake by several guests incidentally or not the Minister of Culture in Sweden made the first cut the outrage began and as accustomed hither thou accel-
Artist Makode Lindephoto by Viceworldcom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 9
erated everything was discussed in terms of in rage over the artist complicit with the Minister
But what no one ever talks about is what do we do about the issues recognized in the act Something as basic as racism--something Makode can neither claim to have caused nor expect to cure what hap-pened to art being a free space
Swedish Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth feeding Artist Makode Linde Photos by Jorge Rivas found on colorlinescom
Art amp Swedenby Katarina Smirnova
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
10 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Ethan Boisvert
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 11
An Abstract Painter in a structured Age
Ethan Boisvert
OBy kenneth lundquist Jr
n a particularly auspicious New Yearrsquos Eve 2009 I met the most ex-traordinary artist Irsquove yet come to know ethan Boisvert introduced himself and we chatted into the next year he informed me that he was an
abstract painter Since irsquom a huge fan of anything ab-stract I was intrigued to see his work Little did I know that the first painting he showed me would change my life forever
fast forward to april 2012 ethan and i are riding the train into grand Central on our way to tribeca where Ethan is featured in a gallery for an opening reception I take the 80-minute opportunity to chat with him about the history of why he became a painter
Ethan graduated from the University of Hartford with a Bachelorrsquos degree in sculpture in 2002 i asked him why he went into painting instead
ldquoThe truth is that I was indecisive about my major I actually enjoyed all forms of art I chose sculpture by
default because it had the most electives It offered me a conceptual approach to art to which i really liked In the real world there is little opportunity to show conceptual or installation art Through painting I found an outlet that provided the opportunity to approach art conceptually and apply it to installation with much less havoc than the sculpture world had itrsquos more versatile because it can be large or small stored with ease and still contain magnanimous ideas I really love it itrsquos perfect for my vision to create something fresh and new though the real world inspires my work i never look at it directly to create it there is no formula that i use i want every piece to have its own story Each painting for me is like a biography of a momentrdquo
playfully i put myself into the role of hipster and asked him what his favorite colors are although he said he had no favorite his top five were Hot Pink Cadmium Orange Windsor Blue Ultramarine Blue and Viridian green
continued on next page
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
12 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoI tend to use bright colors and offset them with muted colors to create the balance irsquom looking for i use neutral colors to bring more depth into the painting Itrsquos very present in nature this balance of color when the sun hits a bright pink flower the shades bring out its neutral pigments itrsquos that hierarchy that brings forward the full spectrum of liferdquo
I asked Ethan which artists bring him inspiration
ldquowhat inspires me most is great art-work and how artists articulate what they see in life So naturally I enjoy art-ists of all ages cultures and forms irsquom attracted most to the modernists My favorite artists are Leger Pollock de kooning nancy graves and rauschem-berg But the artist that inspired me the most is picasso because he is vast in all the works that he did his painting structure color form medium and his drive howard hotchkins inspires me in his use of color that has a power that Irsquove never seen by any other artist any-whererdquo
i asked if he had any mentors that he worked with
ldquoBen lifson he is the most worldly per-son i know in regards to the arts hersquos knowledgeable in all the disciplines we met as friends because of our mutual disagreement on a Dali painting We are both searching for the essence of great art timeless art that isnrsquot bound by constraints of society or personal taste he has shared the best in art with me we discuss the dramas of great artists and how their stories never change itrsquos the envi-ronments that do The characters are the same for artists in the human condition - what it means to make honest work that is a reflection of the human spirit He encour-ages me to do the work i believe in he refuses to take things at face value He always examines the possibilities of the unknown he looks for dynamics expression real-ness always searching for works that are immortalrdquo
i asked ethan what are some of the challenges he has en-
countered on his personal road of creativity
ldquoto make successful work that is strong and moving that can engage an audience the stress of selling work can be overwhelming I find itrsquos dangerous because I donrsquot want the work to be complacent or cater to the masses The competition is crazy Art schools are churn-ing out artists by the thousands The small classes of people that support real artists choose from a small cir-
cle trends personal tastes the agen-das of gallery owners and collectors limits possible exposure grants com-petitions juried shows are so over-loaded sometimes poorly managed and block really great artists that may be lesser known Budgeting your time life and money can be like a free fall you have to create personal structure to be successful Improvisation in an artistrsquos life is essential though mad-dening at times But it makes things interesting and always fresh In es-sence irsquom living my life like my paint-ingsrdquo
An artist living his art fantastic I asked what are some of the goals you have for yourself in the coming years of your creation
ldquoTheyrsquore a little abstract I want to move to a city that has more energy based around the arts irsquom looking for more stability to be able to reach more new ground in my work and have it be my sole attention I would like to experiment in different mediums Irsquom very interested in installations and would like to approach representa-tional work again Collaborative work with other artists is awesome When you find the right people you feel inspired and more relaxed to create You find a new part of yourself to break new ideasrdquo
I asked Ethan if he had any advice for other artists
he peered out the window of the train we were now in Harlem just minutes away from Grand Central sta-tion He said ldquoYou better be really serious about what
ldquoWhat inspires me most is great artwork and how artists articulate what they see in liferdquo
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 13
yoursquore doing You better be able to accept real hardship Maybe you make a great body of work maybe itrsquos the most important work to the discourse of the art world but that doesnrsquot mean that yoursquoll be accepted shown or bought there are a lot of trends and creating in trend does not make great art You better work really really hard and find a great mentor Thatrsquos what is going to get you to your groundbreaking work you have to know not think that yoursquore an art-ist yoursquove got to be tough and be as extro-verted as you are introverted they need to see yourdquo
ethan Boisvert is not only an amazingly grounded and centered person but also a humble artist He creates simply to create a principle that in my opinion many artists forget there is no grand message no ideol-ogy no morality to his work it truly is art for artrsquos sake irsquom honored to know ethan and call him a friend He continues to wow me and the rest of his audience with his work He creates tirelessly and without hesitation He is a true artist
Visit Ethanrsquos website for more
wwwethanboisvertcom
n i G a r a BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
a z t e C w e d d i n G BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
ethan boisvert - Abstract Artist
p e p p e r M i n t w i S H l i S t BY E T H A N B O I S V E R T
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
14 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 15
Melissa robins photography i l l u s t r at e s Dreams
My name is Melissa robin based out of Brooklyn ny
howdo you describe yourself everything in my life re-volves around art i am extremely passionate and driven to express myself through photography
What medium do you use to createas of late i use a Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon lens-es My favorite is prime 85 f12 and ultra-wide zoom 17-40 f4 i also shoot with my back up bodies Can-on 1D Mark II Canon 30D and Canon AE-1 for film describe your work i would say my work is emo-tional and cinematic I attempt to shed light un-cover and make known the beauty in subject mat-ters normally deemed ldquouglyrdquo by societal standards What inspires you I am inspired by human emotions Whether outwardly projected or the ones we harbor in-side emotion connects us all Empathy and understanding others only comes from our own experiences with each feeling it is this way we connect and how we silently share ourselves with one another that challenge and rouse me
Whatmotivatesyouwhenyoumaynotbeinspiredi am motivated by my surroundings light nature and people I might see an interesting shadow while walking to the sub-way or hear a child laughing and become unexpectedly mo-tivated to find my camera Everything has the potential to motivate me
F o r e S t n y M p H By M e l i S S a r o B i n
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
16 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 17
Whydoyoucreate i create because i must i dream of these images and am not satisfied until it has been visual-ized outside of my head these images heal me and re-lease my energies- negative and positive I want nothing more than to open eyes show each person how beautiful they are as well as unveil the unseen beauty in the world around them
describe any elaborate activities rituals youmay havedone while seeking inspiration At times Irsquoll be so im-mersed in an idea or so inspired by a feeling i wonrsquot mind or even notice the crazy risks I take climbing onto a ledge two stories up and balancing unsteadily on a four inch wide rail to get the perfect shot exploring abandoned buildings or even photographing during a flood If even one shot comes out it is worth it
Whendidyouknowyouwantedtobeanartist i have loved art since I can remember the ultimate form of self-expression as far as being a professional photographer the moment i hit the darkroom in Junior high i knew pho-tography captured my soul
Whatdoyouhopetoaccomplishin5yearsi would be happy if in the next 5 years my photography reached peo-ple all over the world I plan to continually submit my work to magazines contests and galleries and i hope to have at least one of my series published in a book irsquom excited to see how my photography will be influenced by the future creative people Irsquom going to meet collaborations I will em-bark on and with the additional element of underwater photography Irsquom starting to explore I am beside myself with anticipation and enthusiasm
Whichisyourownfavoritepieceorbodyofwork right now I am in the middle of a 366 self-portrait project Some-times I hate it because creating a new idea per day can be really exhausting or take too much time in an already busy day however the unbelievable way it has pushed and taught me so much about photography and who i am presently keeps me engulfed
Who is your favorite artist I have an entire electronic folder on my computer full of favorite artists If I have to choose one it would be Salvador Dali he was a dreamer who told his unconscious stories through painting On the level of being inspired by dreams i completely relate
anywordstolivebyforanartiststartingout never give up and do what you love
B a l a n C e By M e l i S S a r o B i n
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
18 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
to p - F Lo w
B ot to M - A b A n d o n e d
R i g h t - d o w n t h e R A b b i t h o L e
By MeliSSa roBin
melissarobinphotocom
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 19
ldquoI dream of these
images and am not
satisfied until it has been
visualized outside of my headrdquo
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
20 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
TO P - H o u S e Ja MC E N T E R - i n t H i S w o r l dB OT TO M - lu C i d
essica Slaglersquos friends call her Slagletron and several people describe her work as lsquohigh fashion on acidrsquo as well as lsquoneo-pop artrsquo She describes her work as a fu-sion between beautiful photography and digital collage ldquoeach piece is a day dream captured in a single mo-mentrdquo she said She enjoys using tons of bright satu-
rated colors and subtle layers of pattern in her work i saw her work online and was impressed with her tal-ent When I met her for the firt time at a group art show at the Empire Hotel the first thing that came to mind was how much she looks like a model with her tall frame long red hair and flawless makeup Shersquos quite a nice package of art per-sonality and style all wrapped up in a girl originally from St paul Minnesota Shersquos been living and working in new york for just a year now and by her energy and enthusiasm I would say shersquos well on her way to big things in the big city I was smoking a cigarette in the open air of the roof-top of the empire hotel that night at the show By chance i met one of Jessicarsquos friends She was as enthusiastic about Jessica and her work as I was and mentioned Jessicarsquos senior thesis project was about art as a tool for meditation Jessica later elaborated on the project and described that she made seven chakra meditation posters and while making each one would open that particular chakra and infuse the piece with her own energy She has done similar in her recent work the recent digital collages she made are all portraits of various medita-tion visualizations shersquos had while living in New York City Jes-sica said that New York is a magical place and it has drastically influenced her work Music is another huge influence Most of her pieces are titled after the song they were inspired from she said ldquoI often find that music helps create a siren-like qual-ity in my workmdashand helps to create a rhythmic progression throughout each piecerdquo Within the next five years Slagletron hopes to be showing her work in solo shows around new york as well as selling her work on a regular basis
website slagletroncom
JS h E rsquo S A l S O k N O W N A SBy Sabrina Scott
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 21
A B O V E - G n o S i S
S l A G l E T R O N
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
22 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
B a d a s sthe badass is an uncommon man of supreme style he does what he wants when he wants where he wants you wont f ind him on facebook and Myspace because he is prob-ably out being cool somewhere
tradit ional ly he wil l smoke but it s not necessary at al l he feels no obl igation whatso-ever to just ify his bel iefs values convict ions morals et cetera with anyone He l ikes his music because it sounds cool to him you wont f ind him if you look for him because there is no sure way to identify him one does not think that he is badass he knowS it and thats that
alternatively a badass is the complete opposite of a douchebag
l ikely to be found in a popular pub taking your money on the pool table then buying you a beer with it you wont identify him by his c lothing because there is no badass uniform Hes probably not sporting the latest fad hes not wearing $200 jeans and he doesnt have frosted hair hes always up for a chal lenge he l l probably succeed and he seems to be good at everything But at the same t ime the badass att itude is l ike ok wel l i dont give a shit
-from Urban dict ionarycom
p h oto g r a p h e r B r i a n pa n g i l i n a n
wa r D r o B e C l a r e n C e S i n g l e to n
M O D E L KO R E Y S H R U M - A D A M M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 23
Faux leather biker jacket with black barbwire shoulder trim-DUNBAR Black tank - american apparel
Black body rise straight leg jeans -Levis
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
24 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
floral printedshirt - andreapalombini
stealthindigoblueultraskinnyjeans- seven4all Mankind
Westernbelt withdetachablebuckle- americanvintage
Brownampblack ladyki l ler sunglasses- tcB
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 25
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
26 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 27
paisleysi lkshirt - Wissam
fringedunisexsuedecape- dunBar
denimcutoff shorts- gap
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
28 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Yoke13 collar13 western13 pearl13 snap13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Kenny13 Rogers13 Genuine13 leather13 straight13 leg13 pants13 -shy‐13 DKNY13 Silk13 paisley13 print13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 Blue13 with13 brown13 leather13 piping13 belt13 -shy‐13 Tommy13 Hilfiger13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 29
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
30 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
Citrus13 yellow13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Fayshire13 Forest13 green13 corduroy13 blazer13 13 -shy‐13 Doublure13 Green13 acid13 washed13 jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13 Paisley13 pocket13 square13 13 -shy‐13 Etro13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 31
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
32 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
White13 and13 red13 short13 sleeve13 button13 shirt13 -shy‐13 Award13 Group13 Suede13 fringe13 jacket13 13 -shy‐13 American13 Vintage13 Jeans13 -shy‐13 Levis13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 33
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
34 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
i am an artist i donrsquot think like the majority of society
lONdON CAllINGby Chris Green
i sit here on a rainy day in my almost comfortable one bed flat in an average South East London town Irsquom possibly the most out of place person where I live I am an artist I donrsquot think like the majority of society When that very society is what your survival depends on despite how much you suffer because of this societyrsquos structure it makes you think about ldquosocietyrdquo a hell of a lot
in terms of my artwork a lot of people ask me about the style of my work To me it is an illogical question My style is not ldquorealrdquo so it is ldquosurrealrdquo but it is not ldquosurrealrdquo style to me as Dali was surreal Dali took you into that world and made it very real Technically he was one of the greatest artists
to have walked amongst us he was a blessing to us all he was an artist An artist is their art it is all they know and it is their ldquolivingrdquo
a funny word that eh ldquolivingrdquo i donrsquot see many of us making the liv-ing we rightly deserve we put our heart and soul into our artwork while society is programmed to totally devalue that fact people can go to ikea and get a ten-foot canvas and a cactus to replace the one that died from being watered too muchmdashall for pound20
what happened to culture what happened to community if more people bought original and local art we could pro-duce work faster and lower our prices But then most people would rather spend pound100 of their payday loan on drink and drugs and getting off their tits to forget about their hell of a life working all week in some robotic-like mindless soulless computer controlling device
Society seemingly does not want individual people doing their individual tasks in individual societies because this does not generate big tax and certainly is less controllableI donrsquot remember when I last sold a painting I have a pos-sible commission but that is just bread and water money Sometimes I really see no way out of everything because the
economy is a total mess the government is corrupt and greedy and the people totally demoralised
So i smile as much as i can and paint as much as i can i make an honest living when there is not much choice So I paint and think and feel and just about sur-vive with a smile because they cannot hold me down i am an artist I deserve respect for that
Did Dali beg of governments no he painted his mind a big scoop of socially deformed brain cells smeared on a big canvas for all unworthy people to see
Artists suffer a subliminal oppression because we do not think like the majority so I think we are automatically labeled as ldquomadrdquo The difference between myself and a madman is i am not mad or something along those lines
obviously i feel that governments try to limit free thought and opinion of which art does encourage Such things can only be counter productive to ldquosocietyrdquo run-ning smoothly to generate tax to keep them rich and us all struggling to attain some form of ldquosocial statusrdquo that wersquoll not likely achieve certainly not as an artist
Being an artist doesnrsquot even seem to qualify as an ac-ceptable form of employment and graphic design and photography are both lost arts with all these digital cam-eras and photoshop nonsense (Sorry photographers email me if you disagree)
Anyway that is just a little window into life as an artist in london feel free to drop me a line on my email chris-greenartyahoocouk
oh and check out a band from Manchester called Bud-dhist anarchist heavy punk tunes with a natch Manny swag ave it peace
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 35
y es children itrsquos true Once upon a time we were uncomputerized if you were driving on a highway at night and your car stalled you had to walk to the nearest phone booth to call aaa when a paper was due
you had to go to the library and look things up in an encyclo-pedia and then you had to clack clack clack for hours on a typewriter that did not self-correctmdashand just hope you didnrsquot lose your only copy If you needed cash after-hours you had to wait with everyone else for the bank to open in the morn-ing if you were dying to talk to your best friend you used a real phone and hoped they were home because there were no answering machines no email and no texting Can you imagine
the new computo-sapienrsquos brain has been rewired for instant contact Socializing is elusive which i guess is why bars will never go out of business i remember when printed personal ads were the rage and you had to wait by the mailbox for results then when the missives arrived you waited by the phone now thanks to matchcom Cupid harmony etc itrsquos easy to have a fantasy relationship If yoursquore scared of actual dating extended email is perfect Or if one lives in Zimbabwe and the other in new york the lovers can remain idealized forever Unfortunately dating sites also lead to callous rude-ness itrsquos too easy to drop a candidate once another more at-tractive one swims into view
and bien sur facebook true you can keep track of loved ones without too much effort And you can contact a long-lost friend or lover in an instantmdashbut yoursquore also defenseless against being found I used to enjoy keeping certain people as distant memories but now the jig is up the playing field is leveled at best important knowledge can be posted and shared at worst fB is a free-for-all of banal confessions boasts and complaints
i donrsquot mean to oversimplify it was in large part thanks to his savvy of social media that obama was able to boost his popularity and win the election Otherwise we may have had an international revolution when McCain died in office and
president palin succeeded thanks to facebook and you-Tube the possibilities of networking and self-promotion are endless Twitter the epitome of ADHD streams se-ductively with celebrity sound bites But as one who has posted earnest tweets to alec Baldwin and alexandra wentworth with no response i know that access is delusional
I have to respect those who reject being jacked up and plugged into Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace etc these people are usually baby boomers or older who cherish the old-fashioned values of quiet privacy and se-lective friendship (Others just donrsquot want to be found) the encouragement of a wall post rings cheerless as does ldquoIrsquom sorryrdquo ring false A real emotion necessitates real contact
Is it possible that the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain circa 1990 marked a new era After all if there is nothing to divide us there is nothing to hide Look at all the reality TV shows that have popped up since then Itrsquos a glut of tell-all not just by celebs but by com-mon folk who think that being on camera makes them fascinating and enviable And years of unpacked accumu-lated guilt have led to cooking shows that offer escape from eating wisely while the many channels of judges punish us for our excesses
We Americans are not keen on growing up Unruly and amoral we rush into fads gulp down panaceas and in-vest in looking and feeling forever young we worship the continuous present as if the past has no bearing and the future is irrelevantmdashwhile the world wide web our omnipotent god feeds our bottomless hunger to be ever-present and ever-immersed yet safe from the ravages of reality
GENERATION Whyby Marilyn Recht
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
36 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
ldquoLike Rah Irsquom a Ras And a prince in my Black ass
Nigga pass on that Nigga pass on gasrdquo
ndashpsychoegyptianaryanBoy
ldquoBouncetothisfreestylerdquocooncarnival
itrsquos friday night Bushwick new york yoursquore
in what my girlfriend (and hugh grant) would call the
ldquododgy endrdquo of the New York art community You get off
the l train and swing a right on Johnson ave in search
of youth group gallery in search of Devin kyle Cuthb-
ertson and the opening of his latest solo art show ldquonow
That all The Riff Raff is Gonerdquo
fuck that too surreal sounding start again
Donrsquot you hate that annoying text on a Saturday morn-
ing you wake up punch in the code to unlock your
phone Fuck it up because yoursquore too tired Punch it in
again and finally read a single short message marking
you immediately as this weekendrsquos unofficial damn fool
It reads ldquoYo Whyrsquod you go home The after-party was
AMAZINGrdquo Congratulations You just played yourself
you thought you saw Devin kyle Cuthbertsonrsquos solo art
show but you missed an awesome music set by the
Good Kids Not to mention a live performance by Devin
in the form of his musical alter-ego Psychoegyptianary-
an Boy
Verbosehellip a little too condescending One more
tryhellipHere at the end of an age that may be defined by
war recession and a western identity still reckoning
with its grandest hopes deferred Brooklyn native Devin
kyle Cuthbertson has done something truly amazing at
youth group gallery he has found a way to reach into
the greasy innards of the new york perhaps the ameri-
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
can zeitgeist and pull out the dirty truth By way of his own
individual brilliance he has denied artistic convention with
the fiercely intelligent yet unashamedly derogatory es-
thetic that courses through his art and inevitably all those
who view it Yeahhellip that sounds betterhellip
now irsquoll admit that trial and error isnrsquot always the
best path to genius But i think thatrsquos what you have to do
when you want to wrap you brain around the new the un-
expected the places and moments that you simply havenrsquot
seen before the artwork on display at Cuthbertsonrsquos ldquonow
That All the Riff Raff is Gonerdquo show was no exception His
work was severe at some moments whimsical at others
The freestyle cypher was pretty laid back but when Devin
himself held the mic the crowd watched him gyrate with
a weird intensity Streaks of brown and yellow paint in a
particular piece remind the viewer of dirt and mess but a
deliberate and cohesive brushstroke pattern always belied
a careful plan
Devinrsquos social network is more than a melting
pot Itrsquos the stuff of legends Hersquos the man with a million
friends One moment hersquos dishing with Venus X a power-
ful member of new yorkrsquos new DJ royalty another mo-
ment hersquos spotted doing video modeling work with Mykki
Blanco or modeling clothing for ale et ange the next
thing we know hersquos discussing the future of Black art with
Rasheed Johnson and the Artist elite
with respect to Cuthbertsonrsquos herculean task of
shattering misconceptions of his being the second coming
of Samo it must be said that if the cast and characters of
the new york art elite today could be paralleled to that of
the Studio 54-era 1980rsquos scene one could place Devin Kyle
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 37
devin kyle Cuthbertson Pharaoh Artist of BushwickBrooklyn byiLikeZach
Cuthbertson in the role of Jean-Michael Basquiat
Some art critics already do The reasons are passeacute
and obvious isnrsquot this again the work of a young
Black artist trying to redefine the art world in
new york isnrsquot he also beloved by the scenesters
of his day but forced to carve his unique place
among them from the inside out like Jean-Mi-
chel and when all else fails one is tempted to
ask ldquoDoesnrsquot Devin look just like Basquiat
These superficial parallels are of course
ridiculous Devin is something other perhaps
something more than a Jean-Michel Basquiat or
the scene itself for that matter He for one would
never settle for the title ldquoneo-primitive artistrdquo the
way Basquiat was forced to He wouldnrsquot settle for any title at
all other than one of his own choosing of course his explora-
tion of Black guilt and morality tragedy and power help to carve
a kind of new black righteousness out of the ether with what
can only be defined as an outright personal tyranny on the part
of the artist
Through his musical persona Psychoegyptianaryan Boy
he has bred for himself a self-contained tyrant-child discarding
Samorsquos crown for the ornate headdress of a pan-african pha-
PA I N T I N G S BY D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Np h oto S By t i f fa n y at k i n S
a G i n G e r B r e a d B oy i n n a z i S paC e
M a r S=v e n u S
F ly B oy S H o ot S H i S l a d d e r
S i S t e r n a n C y rsquoS
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
38 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
raoh a wayward but dangerous product
of the ghetto with no place to go but
within himself to attain the power to
impress his own agency onto his sur-
roundings as a painter he is tragedyrsquos
champion planting a flag of beauty in
the most grotesque places of the view-
ers psyche smoothing out the kinks of
his experience by appropriating them
as functionaries of his own eccentric
palette We have yet to see the product
of his foray into film art but his Daryl
Michael Basquiat feature promises
to appear soon for our criticism and
praise
i sat down to an interview with
Devin because i wanted to unpack some
of the puzzle here he was at the cusp
of a new kind of success a solo art
show that brought forth the whorsquos who
of the Brooklyn art scene in droves
what was going on in the mind of the
man at the center of this firestorm
ilikezach answer however you want
Devin kyle Cuthbertson okay
iLZ if you had to answer the question
ldquowho is devin Kyle Cuthbertsonrdquo what
would you say
DKC Irsquom just a nigga from the hood son
[laughs] nah Devin kyle Cuthbertson is
a person who is actually still trying to sort things out Just trying to make sense of his
life how he was raised the people he was raised by the environment he was raised
in But also trying to make sense of how all that got him to where he is now
iLZ where are you from
DkC irsquom from Bushwick Brooklyn i come from a house of mostly women where i
learned a lot about how fucked up men are where i had to contend with men being
fucked up and how I therefore might be a potential fuck-up I come from a place
A R T I S T D E V I N K Y L E C U T H B E R T S O Npa i n t i n g
n e w JaC K S w i n G 1
p h oto By t i f fa n y at k i n S
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 39
where every Sunday my aunt was straightening her hair with
a boombox blasting RampB out her window Real slow deep
shit I come from a neighborhood stigmatized as being a
ghetto when it was always way more complicated than that
for me
iLZ what do you seek to destroy
DKC What do I seek to destroy Suffering If I can do it yeah
suffering I seek to destroy the values and systems of think-
ing that keep people at a disadvantage and that keep people
from being able to be creative like jail Jail is one [thing I
seek to destroy]
iLZ what do you seek to build
DKC The opposite of jail Just a world for myself and my
people where we are able to realize ourselves and our abili-
ties so that we can materialize our lives in a way that aligns
with a future where we can provide a legacy for our children
for whoever comes after us so that they can feel a greater
sense of freedom and also so that they can have something
to destroy in us in case they want to destroy our legacies
iLZ on the subject of freedom talk to me about your experi-
ence on Rikerrsquos island
DkC yeah i was arrested on night when on a whim i got
this idea to [graffiti] write ldquoJay-Zrdquo throughout New York
and to [graffiti] write different passages from songs that he
made i got caught in the act of doing that in my neighbor-
hood half a block from where I live And I had to do time
because of that and a warrant that I just kinda forgot about
iLZ what was that experience like from the perspective of an
artist
DKC I was scared Rightfully so I was this skinny fucking art-
ist dude going into prison and i had bright-ass blonde hair i
just started to drawing in jail cause I was bored Immediately
people picked up on it and were just like ldquooh can you draw
this design for me for valentines day for my girl for my mom
for my tattoo It was moving for me to see how what I did
was valuable not just within the confines of the art-buying
elite but among people just trying to get through some
shit It just gave me a different sense of how art could
function In my warped mind that had been taught that
therersquos only a certain group of people who can appreci-
ate art I just learned that was not true
It also impressed me to see how beautiful and smart
and ingenious people in there were the amount of in-
ventiveness there is in jail without having the resources
Things like inventing ways to smoke a cigarette and not
get caught Irsquom just really into that Finding alternatives
iLZ who are your artistic influences
DKC I really like artists who tread the line of accept-
ability and troublesomeness to the point of it being
illogical i like the playwright antonin artaud i like a
gay artist named David Wojnarowicz who dealt with
life on the lower east side in the 80s I like the futurists
I mean now we can call them ldquoproblematicrdquo because
they were fascist in particular regards but I really like
what they were doing Who else I like an artist who I
am friends with who made me rethink how art can be
and how I could inject myself as a black man into 2012
america post racial america whatever you want to call
it his name is rasheed Johnson
the man with plans to start a grassroots art-
ist collective to support the creative development of
people of color the man who released a trailer for a
feature length film he wants to produce about Daryl
Michael Basquiat the supposed lost heir to the Bas-
quiat estate I think he also mentioned a desire to do
performance art with dom-porn Skin Diamond some-
time in the near future The riff raff is gone indeed
Devin kyle Cuthbertson is here
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
40 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
n o t yo u r
S A M O S A M OModel amira - new york Models
photographer gavin rea
Styl ist Sherah Jones
hair aleksandra Sasha nesterchuk
Makeup Col leen runne
photo assistant yves francois
Styl ist assistant Jade ford
Cardigan13 Handkerchief13 Shorts13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 Necklace13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
I N S P I R E D BY A R T I S T J E A N-M I C H E L B A S Q U I AT
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 41
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
42 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 43
SAMO AS A neO Art fOrM
- BASquiAt
Jacket13 Vintage13 Vinyl13 Trench13 Bodysuit13 American13 Apparel13 Shoes13 Alexander13 Wang13 Necklace13 Forever13 2113 Bracelet13 Philippe13 Audibert13 Paris13 Makeup13 Obsessive13 Compulsive13 Cosmetics13 Lip13 Tar13 Colors13
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
44 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO plAying Art- BASquiAt
Jacket handkerchief
denimBuffalodavidBitton
Beltshoes styl ist rsquos own
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 45
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
46 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 47
Hand13 beaded13 Romper13 Eredappa13 Shoes13 Rag13 and13 Bone13 Hat13 Uniqlo13
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
48 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
SAMO AS An end tO MindwASh religiOn
Jacket13 Vintage13 Leather13 Motorcycle13 Jumpsuit13 Buffalo13 David13 Bitton13 Shoes13 Jeffery13 Campbell13 BeltGlasses13 Stylists13 own13
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 49 The bottom 12 inch of the back page will be covered by your tagline (chosen during publish process) and an order number for internal processing
nOwhere pOliticS And BOguS philOSOphy-BASquiAt
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
50 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR50
BeyondtourismincubaphotographsfromtheothersidephotoessaybyLauraBluher
Of my most vivid memories of Cuba my first bus ride remains striking a tangle of limbs swallowed me as i climbed aboard the sputtering guagua There seemed to be more than a hundred people crammed into the de-crepit bus an import sent to Cuba from the Soviet Union not long before its dissolution in the early 1990rsquos I was pushed to the center of the chaos unable to move or see the outside street i forced myself to breathe deeply grating against the claustrophobia that crept up inside my throat a phenomenon that occurs even as i recollect this moment
I can still hear Cuban Spanish spilling from unseen mouths and shooting around through the humid air iquestCoacutemo estaacute tu mamaacute Tengo una mujer embarazada acaacute iexclmueacutevanse parsquo que pueda salir
it sounded nothing like i had ever heard in a Spanish class or in the streets where i live in new york the ends of words disappear and sentences blend together an accent that still often confuses me even after studying practic-ing living it the thrill and intensity of this memory and ones like it are what keep me coming back to Cuba
I first arrived in Cuba in 2010 for a four-month study abroad program in conjunction with an arts institution the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba For the first few weeks the other students and I were shuttled around to vari-ous famous Cuban sites such as the Baroque cathedral in old havana or the Museum of guanabacoa to learn about the history and practice of the syncretic religion santeriacutea in Cuba While these excursions were interesting and well rounded i never felt as if i were experiencing other aspects of the Cuban reality apart from the tourism industry the stories i heard were well rehearsed and po-litically correct never controversial I was there studying photography and i was not taking any photographs
These activities had to be crowd-pleasersmdasheasily digest-ible concise glimpses of Cuban culture that would keep tourists coming back for more tourism accounts for the majority of Cubarsquos revenue It only made sense that cul-tural institutions and hotels would charge large sums of money to provide a luxury tourist experience in order
to rake in more money for the state however instead of placing emphasis on tourism that would involve a broad spectrum of the countryrsquos citizens and that would over-lap with their quotidian lives it seemed that the state-run tourism industry aimed to divide the foreignersrsquo vision of an ideal Cuba from the way things actually are Activities that were a part of state-run tours were based in fact but were so oversimplified that they showed none of the lay-ers of complexity that are present in every aspect of life in Cuba So allowing my camera to be my guide i diverged from the tourist path that had been cut out for me and created an itinerary based on my own wanderings
On one of my first walks alone through Havana I came across a barbershop in the Vedado neighborhood I spent the afternoon photographing there watching the flux of regular clients as they came and went the barbers were cheerful and completed their work with speed and pre-cision the clientele ranged from university-aged young men to old men who came in only for a shave (a bar-beriacutea usually just serves men while a peluqueriacutea serves women)
At first glance it seemed like a normal Latin American barbershop With further observation my eyes wandered from the people to the space itself the barberiacutea embod-ied Cuba in a way that i had not seen in any of the state-run tours i could only see two power outlets in the room there were cracks in the mirrors nailed to the peeling walls and the tools the barbers used were all but falling apart A two-liter water bottle existed in place of a sink with running water to dampen the menrsquos hair before cut-ting it The barberiacutea hardly ever received new equipment or a maintenance budget to keep it afloat The barbers were constantly reinventing ways to keep their power outlets functioning and their hair dryers running Innately Cuban their reality was attempting to fill this empty space using only fragments of functional things As workers they were assigned a job and no matter what they had to do it
One night in a bar called Fresa y Chocolate named after the popular 1994 film I began talking to a musician named yuliano Cubans in general are amiable and like to social-ize with travelers so I mentioned to him that I wanted to
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 51
go west to photograph in the province of pinar del riacuteo famous as the best tobacco-growing region of Cuba Coincidentally he had family in pinar del riacuteo and said that he and his friends could take me there so he could visit his relatives and I could photograph
two days later yuliano his friends tata and leo and i were on the road to pinar del riacuteo with public transit as is with almost everything else in Cuba there is a hierarchy of modes and fares geared towards separating Cubans from tourists so that tourists must pay exponentially more Had I been alone I would have traveled west with the Viazul bus company
a w o M a n PAU S E D O N H E R B a l C o n y i n i n O L D H AVA N A
S t r a n g e r S r i D e to g e t h e r i n a C r o w D e D TA X I I N H AVA N A
C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PA G E
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
52 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR52
A C L I E N T WA I T S O U T S I D E o f t h e B a r B e r i a i n t h e V E D A D O N E I G H B O R H O O D
ldquo T R I U M P H O F T H E TO W N A N D T H E to w n S p e o p l ersquoS i D e a Srdquo p o l i t i C a l G R A F F I T I F R O M T H E C O U N T R Y S I D E
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
CREATIVE SuGAR Summer 2012 53
A Viazul ticket to Pinar del Riacuteo costs 12 CUC about 15 USD the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is about 15 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) roughly 18 USD which he works for in addition to his meager monthly ration of food
To travel on Viazul would have been impossible for my friends we hitchhiked to catch a ride on a maquina or livestock truck filled with human passengers we took the guagua to the outskirts of havana we waited by the side of the westbound road for a truck that would pick us up along with the other passengers that arrived at the unof-ficial transportation spot
In addition to public transport there are grocery stores housing accommodations and restaurants with price points that attract either Cubans or foreigners almost never both By emphasizing this duality in the economic system and enforcing the divide between Cubans and tourists outsiders are made to have one type of expe-rience and are expected to pay a high price for it ironi-cally with yuliano and his friends i was spending next to no money and I was having the most informative and grounding experience of my life
We arrived at Yulianorsquos familyrsquos house late at night after a long slow ride to pinar del riacuteo his familyrsquos house had concrete floors and no furniture other than lumpy mat-tresses in the corner and a few kitchen chairs around a crooked table In the flickering fluorescent lights we ate leftover arroz moro and drank orange soda from the bot-tle Yulianorsquos family had very little and yet the children went to school each morning clothed in red and white uni-forms that made them look no different than all the other children in the town his family welcomed me with open arms and showed me the Cuba not meant to be seen by tourists a Cuba just as vibrant as the one the state wanted me to see but that was also tinged with the dark social implications of the countryrsquos complicated political reality Who can say if Cuba continues to fulfill its utopian foun-dation or is flawed by the inevitable partitions that arise from being a communist state caught in the turmoil of a world that is dominated by capitalism even with univer-sal healthcare and high standards for literacy on the is-land there are still gaping holes in its infrastructure as well as contradictions between town and country various levels of bureaucracy and the disparities that are forced between Cubans and tourists
But Cuba is rapidly changing in my last visit to the island i saw people managing their own businesses and simulta-neously heard of many failures in trying to do so i heard of people selling their cars now that it is legal under rauacutel Castrorsquos new liberalized administration of the Commu-nist Party These tiny changes could lead to a society that looks more and more like capitalism and for better or for worse radically alter the physical social and cultural to-pography of the island the Cuba of today is wrapped in a conundrum the peasant labor-based society that followed the triumph of the Revolution ultimately failed in the cur-rent global environment and now liberalization isnrsquot really working either My fascination with Cuba stems from the fact that the situation warrants such overwhelming pessi-mism but Cubans are optimistic about their own reality The majority of Cubans I have met in the last two years have been generous resourceful and intensely creative people I plan to return as much as possible to continue to witness firsthand how Mr Castrorsquos liberal changes visually manifest in Cuban society
f i n C a a l f r e D o h e r n a n D e z r o Ja S a to B a C C o fa r M i n V I N A L E S P I N A R D E L R I O
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR
54 Summer 2012 CREATIVE SuGAR