If you find yourself browsing the magazines at Opening Ceremony New York, odds are you’ll notice an extraordinarily thick and heavy magazine. The stitched-up back is beautifully raw and the paper choice is crisp, thick, and matte. This is VANDALS, and it is no ordinary magazine. “Everyone is talking about the crisis of magazines, saying that books and magazines are dead,” said Mathieu Vladimir Alliard, the editor-in-chief. “The idea was to make more of a collectible book, something you keep and treasure like an expensive art book, something of a reference.”
The bi-annual magazine is filled with a carefully curated mix of imagery from fashion, photography, and art, interspersed with a few longer interviews. When describing the magazine, Alliard lingers on the word “raw” and then adds: “Story-driven, personal, provocative, and sincere. And probably naïve... To all the cynics out there, we must look truly naïve.” It’s a description very much to the point, many of the featured photographs comes with that raw, decadent, everyday realism that CORINNE DAY was both praised and scolded for back in the day when the term “heroin chic” was coined. But even the most romantic dreamlike imagery has a realistic, raw edge to it; in fact, there’s nothing glossy or glamorous about the VANDALS content. No explanations are offered, either. “Every time you give someone even the tiniest piece of context, you actually orientate the way they'll look at a story. For instance, we don't approach pictures the same way if we know that it's the work of a recognized artist or a 'youngblood'," Alliard told me. “We prefer the idea of letting the viewer deal with what they can only see. But obviously, I know that nowadays most of our readers have tablets, smartphones, laptops, computers and are using them to constantly look things up. 20 years ago we didn't have the tools to look for context ourselves. But today when we see something that intrigues us, we open our browser to Google or Wikipedia and we find out more. So first you discover without prejudices, without context or knowledge, and we present you with something we hope is new and provoking to you. We know that you have the tools if you wish to dig, to investigate, to get that context and the explanations you need."
And why the name VANDALS? Alliard explained, "What is considered vandalism now may one day end up being an 'all-time classic.' Van Gogh, Rimbaud, and Bacon were vandals, 'outlaws,' 'misfits,' 'freaks.' Nowadays they are studied exhaustingly in universities and they are considered milestones of art history. So vandals are people, artists, that stand against a certain norm, people pushing the limits of what is right, what is beautiful. They are necessary risk-takers at a certain time.”
VANDALS Magazine is now available at OCNY, 33 Howard Street.![]()
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The bi-annual magazine is filled with a carefully curated mix of imagery from fashion, photography, and art, interspersed with a few longer interviews. When describing the magazine, Alliard lingers on the word “raw” and then adds: “Story-driven, personal, provocative, and sincere. And probably naïve... To all the cynics out there, we must look truly naïve.” It’s a description very much to the point, many of the featured photographs comes with that raw, decadent, everyday realism that CORINNE DAY was both praised and scolded for back in the day when the term “heroin chic” was coined. But even the most romantic dreamlike imagery has a realistic, raw edge to it; in fact, there’s nothing glossy or glamorous about the VANDALS content. No explanations are offered, either. “Every time you give someone even the tiniest piece of context, you actually orientate the way they'll look at a story. For instance, we don't approach pictures the same way if we know that it's the work of a recognized artist or a 'youngblood'," Alliard told me. “We prefer the idea of letting the viewer deal with what they can only see. But obviously, I know that nowadays most of our readers have tablets, smartphones, laptops, computers and are using them to constantly look things up. 20 years ago we didn't have the tools to look for context ourselves. But today when we see something that intrigues us, we open our browser to Google or Wikipedia and we find out more. So first you discover without prejudices, without context or knowledge, and we present you with something we hope is new and provoking to you. We know that you have the tools if you wish to dig, to investigate, to get that context and the explanations you need."
And why the name VANDALS? Alliard explained, "What is considered vandalism now may one day end up being an 'all-time classic.' Van Gogh, Rimbaud, and Bacon were vandals, 'outlaws,' 'misfits,' 'freaks.' Nowadays they are studied exhaustingly in universities and they are considered milestones of art history. So vandals are people, artists, that stand against a certain norm, people pushing the limits of what is right, what is beautiful. They are necessary risk-takers at a certain time.”
VANDALS Magazine is now available at OCNY, 33 Howard Street.
