When Bret Easton Ellis interviewed National frontman Matt Berninger for his podcast recently, he credited the band’s 2008 album The Boxer for helping pull him out of depression. If the National’s signature sound—introspective, moody, plaintive—has evolved since their 2001 debut (which was more Tom Waits than Radiohead), Berninger has evolved with it. “Once you have kids, I think we realized how our rock band is actually not at all that important in the grand scheme of things,” he told Interview last year. In March fans got to see Berninger from a fresh perspective in the funny, poignant documentary, Mistaken for Strangers, directed by Tom Berninger, the singer’s younger brother, and as much an inquiry into sibling rivalry/love as a rock doc (Michael Moore described it as “one of the best documentaries about a band that I’ve ever seen”).

Here the two discuss the creative process, finding their audience, and embracing the mainstream.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Musician Jack Antonoff (Fun./Bleachers) and Musician Matt Berninger (The National) appeared first on BlackBook.

One of the most in-demand costume designers in Hollywood, Michael Wilkinson was nominated for an Academy Award this year for his work on American Hustle. A graduate of NIDA in Sydney—the same drama school as Bartlett (and for that matter, Cate Blanchett—the three overlapped), he has designed costumes for movies as varied as Party Monster, Garden State, 300, and the forthcoming Darren Aronofsky apocalyptic spectacular, Noah. In American Hustle the costumes played a crucial role in propelling David O. Russell’s narrative. By drawing on vintage pieces by Diane von Furstenberg and Halston—and scouring old copies of Cosmopolitan—Wilkinson was able to evoke the spirit of the era without resorting to Austin Powers-like pastiche. “How they [the characters] present themselves to the world says a lot about how they feel about themselves,” he told The Daily Beast. “They use clothes to empower themselves.”

For BlackBook the two sat down to reminisce on their time at NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art), and their life as Australians transplants in the U.S.

The post Murray Bartlett and Michael Wilkinson Reminisce and Talk Cate Blanchett and Their Australian Roots appeared first on BlackBook.

Although Reedus has acted in many indie movies, including cult fave The Boondock Saints, it’s his Walking Dead character that has electrified his career. And while the show’s body count is high, fans have made it clear they wont take kindly to Reedus’s exit if, and when, that happens. “If Daryl Dies, We Riot” is a common refrain found on T-shirts, mugs, and other fan paraphernalia. “Last season, they were bringing fan mail to my trailer in this mini tractor,” Reedus recalled in a recent interview for Complex magazine, before adding: “But, think about it—it’s not that hard to look cool when you’re carrying a crossbow.”

If anyone can match Reedus’s antic energy its Eric André, whose 15-minute Cartoon Network series, The Eric Andre Show is 15 minutes of the funniest, most uncomfortable TV you will find anywhere. Andre calls it an “anti-talk-show talk show,” that undermines the conventions of the traditional format by exposing them. A typical show will begin with him smashing up his own set, and proceeds from there. Although he does interview real guests—Pete Wentz, Devandra Banhart, James Van Der Beek, to name a few—it’s his fake guests such as George Clooney or Jack Nicholson that are often the funniest. Asked what she would say to Matthew Broderick if he was in the room, “Reese Witherspoon” replies, “suck my dick—I would rather f*** two midgets on a toadstool.” Just don’t expect to find the clip of Andre dressed as a chain-smoking Ronald McDonald terrorizing the diners of a McDonald’s by growling, “you’re fired” at them all. That clip was deemed too risqué by the show’s lawyers.

Watch Part I HERE.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Actor/Artist Norman Reedus and Comedian Eric André (Part II) appeared first on BlackBook.

Although Reedus has acted in many indie movies, including cult fave The Boondock Saints, it’s his Walking Dead character that has electrified his career. And while the show’s body count is high, fans have made it clear they wont take kindly to Reedus’s exit if, and when, that happens. “If Daryl Dies, We Riot” is a common refrain found on T-shirts, mugs, and other fan paraphernalia. “Last season, they were bringing fan mail to my trailer in this mini tractor,” Reedus recalled in a recent interview for Complex magazine, before adding: “But, think about it—it’s not that hard to look cool when you’re carrying a crossbow.”

If anyone can match Reedus’s antic energy its Eric André, whose 15-minute Cartoon Network series, The Eric Andre Show is 15 minutes of the funniest, most uncomfortable TV you will find anywhere. Andre calls it an “anti-talk-show talk show,” that undermines the conventions of the traditional format by exposing them. A typical show will begin with him smashing up his own set, and proceeds from there. Although he does interview real guests—Pete Wentz, Devandra Banhart, James Van Der Beek, to name a few—it’s his fake guests such as George Clooney or Jack Nicholson that are often the funniest. Asked what she would say to Matthew Broderick if he was in the room, “Reese Witherspoon” replies, “suck my dick—I would rather f*** two midgets on a toadstool.” Just don’t expect to find the clip of Andre dressed as a chain-smoking Ronald McDonald terrorizing the diners of a McDonald’s by growling, “you’re fired” at them all. That clip was deemed too risqué by the show’s lawyers.

Stay tuned for Part II from Norman and Eric, coming soon.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Actor/Artist Norman Reedus and Comedian Eric André appeared first on BlackBook.

The discovery of Mondrian’s grave jolted painter Paul Pagk and sculptor Leonardo Drew — what would they leave behind? A body of work, hopefully remembered, and a forgotten body? Here the two ponder their future legacies, and the legacy of those around them.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Artists Leonardo Drew & Paul Pagk appeared first on BlackBook.

Nick Wooster recently announced his departure from his latest venture at Atrium, on his own terms this time – we’ve known him to be ousted from stately department stores for perhaps choosing the wrong words, and gone from a more wide-reaching store for being a bit too fashion – so it’s refreshing to hear this menswear hero will be making his own career choices now. The recently crowned Vogue Fashion Fund winners are as eager to watch Nick, and vice versa, as we.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Nick Wooster and Public School appeared first on BlackBook.

If you missed Part 1, can you find it here.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Andy Cohen and Billy Eichner Part II appeared first on BlackBook.

With industry approval at his back (Gelinas has garnered recognition both from Peroni as the winner of the MADE for Peroni Young Designer Award and now as a finalist for the LVMH Prize), his hands searching through the most innovative materials, and his feet planted firmly on the ground, Gelinas promises to take CG far. We can’t wait to wear his pieces and watch his brand grow.

The post Emerging Designers: Chris Gelinas appeared first on BlackBook.

The post BlackBook 3 Minutes: Andy Cohen and Billy Eichner Part I appeared first on BlackBook.

I don’t have any personal life so it was not complicated, everything is public and all my work is available to everybody. I show all aspects of myself—fragile, strange, dramatic, kitschy, whatever. And I think being vulnerable, the public can also project their own vulnerability into my persona, which makes them closer to me and I’m closer to them.

And as her most personal work to date, Robert Wilson’s viscerally and visually stunning The Life and Death of Marina Abramović (now onstage at the Park Avenue Armory), re-imagines her remarkable life—from the tortured Yugoslavian childhood of her past and her decades of work as a performance artist to her love affairs and what the future will inevitably bring. Starring Abramović as both herself and her mother, she performs alongside an incredibly athletic Willem Dafoe and bellowing Antony Hegarty. Amalgamating music, theater, sound, design, physical performance, and visual art, the “quasi-opera” encompasses all facets of performance, bringing the audience on a fragmented and abstract immersion into the emotional and psychological landscape of the artist’s extraordinary life.

From the early beginnings of her career, Abramović has used her body as a vehicle for expression—and Wilson’s show, in which she gave him complete freedom to tell her story, is no exception. With her art, she creates a unique dialogue between herself and audience, asking the public to watch as she tests the mental and physical limitations of the human body. She solicits the viewer to participate in the experience, creating a conversation and critique of social norms and boundaries of everyday actions and interactions. Having been raised in former Yugoslavia to militant parents, her childhood was imbued with an incredible sense of discipline and structure which has fueled her abilities as an artist, but also created an extreme emotional distance that has created a deep yearning to love and be loved. And in that great expression of physicality in her work, she manipulates our conception of time, slowing down the clock to embody the notion of time’s illusion to inhabit an eternal moment.

And if there’s any other artist whose work echoes that temporal element, it’s avant-garde electronic composer and master of brilliant sound William Basinski—who collaborated with Wilson, Abramović, and Hegarty to create the powerful music forThe Life and Death of Marina Abramović. As one of the most fascinating composers in the world, he too has been perfecting his craft for decades now. After being greatly inspired by Brian Eno’s melancholic Music for Airports and the work of Steve Reich, Basinski began experimenting, investigating just how far he could go with the tape loops that have now gone on to garner him both the acclaim and following that has been slowly building for over twenty years. His immersive soundscapes drone on and on, shifting your consciousness—stripping bare the artifice of time and allowing you to inhabit that eternal moment. From his early work to The Disintegration Loops and now his work with Abramović, his music lives in an ineffable realm that’s as delicate as it is harrowing and extremely powerful in its absolute beauty—especially heard here upon the stage.

“In the concerts, I usually do one long set because the whole point is to try and get out of this body and this worry and this nonsense and just take a little vacation, fall in. And forty minutes can go by and it feels like five, so that’s the ideal situation. It’s like meditation, you have some relief, you sort of go back into the womb,” he once told me. And although having never met previously to the collaborative experience of the show, Abramović have fallen into a natural simpatico, both in their work and personally.

Now one of the most revered and legendary artists—with a show that immortalizes her career— Abramović took some time while getting her stage makeup done to talk to her dear friend Basinski to discuss the physical and mental limits of expression, inhabiting an eternal moment, and the state of the art world today through their seasoned eyes.

Enjoy Part I,  Part II, and Part III.

The post Marina Abramović‎ and William Basinski Inhabit an Eternal Moment (Part IV) appeared first on BlackBook.