A former stylist, Andrew Richardson started Richardson, a magazine dedicated to cultural reflections on sex and sexuality, in 1998. Publishing halted for awhile but when the fourth issue came out last year, the mag experienced a striking comeback (as those of you who have picked up a copy at OC might already know). Andrew is a true gentleman who stands at the crossroads of sophisticated taste, shocking lust, and underground cool. We dropped by the publication's downtown NYC office to scope it out and talk shop.
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Alexandre Stipanovich: I've read that you were strongly affected by Richard Prince's 1983 painting of Brooke Shields as a nude ten year old. Is it the reason you started a magazine dedicated to sexiness?
Andrew Richardson: No, it wasn’t. It was just something that I saw when I was 23 in the Guggenheim or the Whitney and that made a big impression on me. It was one of those things that was a "wow" moment for me. When I came to do the magazine, Richard Prince was kind enough to let us use it in the first issue.
AS: So how did the magazine come about?
AR: Fumihiro "Charlie Brown" Harashi, a guy from Tokyo who just died recently, had the idea to do the magazine. He published a magazine called Dune, and he was very open to publishing the editorials I worked on with people like Terry Richardson or Mario Sorrenti that were too sexually provocative for a lot of American and European magazines. I was into sex in fashion and so were the photographers I was working with. Igon Schiller talked about the "erotic attack," and I was interested in processing sex through the editorial at the time. So Charlie saw some scrapbooks that I had made over the years and said, "I think it'd be interesting to see what kind of porn magazine you would make." And that's really how it started.
AS: Do you think sex practices are part of a quest for identity, or are they more of a fun release?
AR: Probably both of those things.
AS: And by documenting taboo sex practices, are you actually sublimating them or are you just curious about them?
AR: I’m interested in understanding something that I couldn't get into myself. I suppose my interests have more to do with provocation and shock than the normalcy of the human sexual condition that, processed through social taboos, becomes extraordinary. And I’m interested in looking at it in a more measured way, and trying to see what it is beyond the initial taboo reaction. I’m interested in beauty, lust, and elevated feelings of the high of sex and the high of love.
AS: Would you describe Richardson as the new Playboy?
AR: I wouldn’t. I think that Playboy was a very interesting moment in history in that you had a repressed 50s America, with lots of racial and sexual segregation. Making a magazine that featured erotica and black culture––which at the time were taboo and very cool––was the logical thing to do for someone like Hugh Hefner, who was into sex, jazz, and black culture. The thing I really liked about Playboy was the quality of its writers––the magazine was a powerful voice. But I wouldn’t say that we’re really like a Playboy.
AS: Do you think the definition of sexiness has evolved much since the time of Playboy?
AR: Yeah, I think that the prevalence of pornography on the Internet is one of the things that really changed the idea o
__________________________________________________________________
Alexandre Stipanovich: I've read that you were strongly affected by Richard Prince's 1983 painting of Brooke Shields as a nude ten year old. Is it the reason you started a magazine dedicated to sexiness?
Andrew Richardson: No, it wasn’t. It was just something that I saw when I was 23 in the Guggenheim or the Whitney and that made a big impression on me. It was one of those things that was a "wow" moment for me. When I came to do the magazine, Richard Prince was kind enough to let us use it in the first issue.
AS: So how did the magazine come about?
AR: Fumihiro "Charlie Brown" Harashi, a guy from Tokyo who just died recently, had the idea to do the magazine. He published a magazine called Dune, and he was very open to publishing the editorials I worked on with people like Terry Richardson or Mario Sorrenti that were too sexually provocative for a lot of American and European magazines. I was into sex in fashion and so were the photographers I was working with. Igon Schiller talked about the "erotic attack," and I was interested in processing sex through the editorial at the time. So Charlie saw some scrapbooks that I had made over the years and said, "I think it'd be interesting to see what kind of porn magazine you would make." And that's really how it started.
AS: Do you think sex practices are part of a quest for identity, or are they more of a fun release?
AR: Probably both of those things.
AS: And by documenting taboo sex practices, are you actually sublimating them or are you just curious about them?
AR: I’m interested in understanding something that I couldn't get into myself. I suppose my interests have more to do with provocation and shock than the normalcy of the human sexual condition that, processed through social taboos, becomes extraordinary. And I’m interested in looking at it in a more measured way, and trying to see what it is beyond the initial taboo reaction. I’m interested in beauty, lust, and elevated feelings of the high of sex and the high of love.
AS: Would you describe Richardson as the new Playboy?
AR: I wouldn’t. I think that Playboy was a very interesting moment in history in that you had a repressed 50s America, with lots of racial and sexual segregation. Making a magazine that featured erotica and black culture––which at the time were taboo and very cool––was the logical thing to do for someone like Hugh Hefner, who was into sex, jazz, and black culture. The thing I really liked about Playboy was the quality of its writers––the magazine was a powerful voice. But I wouldn’t say that we’re really like a Playboy.
AS: Do you think the definition of sexiness has evolved much since the time of Playboy?
AR: Yeah, I think that the prevalence of pornography on the Internet is one of the things that really changed the idea o