Above: Tim Groen, Felix Burrichter, New York, 2010

Felix Burrichter
Editor / Creative Director, PIN-UP Magazine

“The aim was very simple and almost banal,” Felix answers when I ask what he had in mind when he founded PIN-UP, of which he is the editor and creative director. “I wanted to bring some of the ephemeral qualities, the playfulness of fashion editorial to an architecture publication, and make it entertaining.”

Felix, who was trained as an architect, has always been obsessed with fashion magazines, which is why, when he was still a student, he would intern at a fashion magazine every summer (Numéro, Fantastic Man). “At the time these internships didn’t make any sense, not even to me,” he says, looking back on feeling somewhat torn between two worlds that are traditionally presented in almost opposite ways. “But once I graduated, and was working as an architect, this idea started crystallizing that I wanted to create an architecture magazine that actually wasn’t boring and dry.”

And so the first issue of PIN-UP was created, without a business plan, but with a very clear idea of what the magazine should, and should not be: Lose the heavy-handedness that’s so prevalent in architecture media, and bring on a dose of fashion sprit, in which, as Felix puts it, “there’s no such thing as inappropriate. If anything, inappropriateness is almost desirable.”

Flash-forward about three years, to issue number seven, and all of Felix’ ideas about his magazine for architectural entertainment are still firmly in place. The main change Felix can identify is that PIN-UP is increasingly about design. “Design lies somewhere between architecture and fashion”, he explains, “in terms of shelf life and attitude.” But the reader who has followed the magazine from issue one, may have noticed that contemporary art is featured more and more. Felix acknowledges this: “From design it’s an easy step to contemporary art, and I never thought that that would happen. I was always interested in art, but felt like I didn’t know very much about it.”
Art and architecture are a perfect match, argues Felix, who is excited about the room for experimentation where the two intersect.
“It doesn’t mean that PIN–UP will eventually become an art magazine, but it’s yet another subject that allows for a certain freedom in relation to architecture, and freedom is what PIN–UP is all about.”

I’m personally mildly obsessed with those sections in magazines that ask a person for their favorite things, or better yet, for the “things that they can’t live without,” as ELLE Decor words it. Usually the answers sound pretentious, or embarrassing, or both. And they often pander to the advertiser you see three pages later. Since I have no advertisers to pander to, I asked Felix to list the ten things he can live without (but may decide to keep anyway):

1. Subway Tiles:
McNally did them first, and now, like taxidermy, they’ve slowly crept up all over New York restaurants, presumably to create that slightly rustic edgy charm of yore. I prefer a nice square white ceramic tile any day (like a >Bernd Trasberger< installation)!

2. Plastic Garden Chairs:
I actually don’t mind them so much, the only reason I’m listing it is because it’s part of one of my favorite quotes. A reporter once asked Catherine Deneuve during the Berlin Biennale what she thought was the biggest horror in the world. After some thought that was her answer.

3. Cinnamon and Celery:
There is no dish in the world I can think of that benefits from adding either of those ingredients. The worst to me is cinnamon on a cappuccino, or celery dipped into a jar of peanut butter.

4. Shades/curtains:
I find pitch-black rooms disturbing. Not only do I not mind being woken by the morning sun, but waking up and not being able to see the sky seriously freaks me out. Nonetheless I recently bought shades for my apartment. They’re classic photo studio black vinyl shades intended to shield me from potentially nosy neighbors. (And I have to admit: I really like them and have them down a lot.)

5. Sunscreen:
I wish I didn’t need it, but unfortunately I do. The same goes for glasses, actually.

6. AOL Time Warner Center & Astor Place Tower:
Only two of many examples of how architecture can really destroy New York City’s cityscape and character (and that’s from someone who didn’t even move here until 2003).

7. 43 pairs of shoes (not including sandals or flip flops):
I really don’t need them all, but have very hard time letting go.

8. Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier.

9. Noguchi coffee tables, black Barcelona chairs, and Castiglione’s Arco lamp:
By themselves they’re all amazing design pieces, but combined they remind me too much of the default designer pieces one can find in any low-ceilinged, over-priced New York condo building sample apartment.

10. Dust.

Links:
PIN-UP Magazine

Tim Groen: Felix Burrichter, New York, 2010

Tim Groen: Brad Fisher, New York, 2009.

Tim Groen: Brad Fisher, New York, 2009.

Not everything you work on for a magazine gets published (as many of you know). My interview with Brad Fisher for Fantastic Man Magazine never made it to print (but you can find my Jonathan Adler interview here, on Jonathan’s site). The photoshoot I conceived to accompany the interview, with Brad as a Tom Selleck-y, late 70’s, “Sexy Professor”, was published, and Brad looked great in it. I had asked Brad to grow his moustache for the shoot.

I’m posting a short version of my interview, but keep in mind that this was in 2007, and of course things have changed; Brad’s move to NY is now ancient history, and he feels completely settled in. What hasn’t changed is the frequency of the modeling gigs (Brad is with Ford Models) that pull him away from the canvases he works on (see Brad’s work here). Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen his face in J. Crew, Polo or Versace campaigns, or in one of many international editorials.

Anyway, here’s a drastically edited version of my 2007 interview with Brad.

BRAD FISHER: LIVIN’ HIS DREAM—IN WRINKLED PANTS

By Tim Groen

Brad Fisher is a self-described ‘nice Jewish boy from Southern California’. He grew up near the beach, but ever since Jaws, he has been terrified of the ocean.

The first time Brad showed his art was at an underground gallery, an experience he reflects upon as “a small scale situation, but the biggest thrill of my life in LA, it felt exactly right”. Consequently he decided to focus more on his art than on modeling/acting, and kept going at it. “I didn’t want to be in my mid-fifties to find myself saying: What if? What if?”
A couple of years later his work started adorning the walls of (don’t forget, this is in Hollywood after all) Renee Zellweger, Drew Barrymore, Bruce Weber and the late author Julia Philips.
Despite experiencing a certain degree of success, Los Angeles began to feel like a better idea looking in from the outside. “And it wasn’t very hard to let it all go ‘cause I was always sort of on the fringe anyway.” So, bags were packed and the move was made.

New York was not a foreign place to Brad, “I grew up coming here, visiting my much older, really smart, liberal, Jewish Upper West Side relatives. And it was always fantastic to be around them, and to be dragged around by my aunt in her high heels, visiting all these weird artists that she knew.”

His first year in town Brad immersed himself in the art world. He went to every gallery, museum, and art opening, to learn just what the deal is. His research made him feel confident, and he found himself looking at galleries thinking, “My stuff could hang here”. As an artist you have to have a bit of a mad ego, he says, because without that “it’s going to go nowhere, and you’re just going to get crushed. About nothing in my life, do I have as much confidence as I do about my work.”

Living the artist’s life can be bit of a financial struggle, he admits, but the payoff is that he gets to participate in a world more real than the one he left behind. “The New York art scene is not dissimilar to Hollywood; they like their stars and the money, and there’s a definite hierarchy amongst the galleries”. It reminds him of the big talent agencies in LA, but he points out one major difference, “New York actually loves talent. They like an interesting package as much as the next one, however, in New York, a one-eyed, limping Polish immigrant can make it big, if he has a talent for something.

Brad philosophizes that we are in the middle of a period of generally shallow ideas, and compares the situation to the 1950’s. “When everything was sugar-coated, and glossy and colorful, look what happened; the sixties hit us like a truck.”
His train of thought leads to talking about how men’s styles of earlier decades had a certain, sexy je ne sais quoi. “I was up late the other day and saw “love Story” again with Ryan O’Neal,” he says, “and I was blown away by the styling. The cars, the aviator sunglasses, the moustaches and sideburns, the collegiate look, the whole thing. No matter what they did in the seventies, it always ended up looking really hot, like great porn almost. The clothes were beautiful, but there’s always something really sexy and dirty about it.”
Movie styling can’t pull that off now, says Brad, and he partially blames the stars. “Current actors pale in comparison. I mean, Tom Cruise, puh-leaze.”

His own casual style is not nearly as coordinated as the leading men he admires, “Being a native Californian, I can’t help it, but my favorite things to wear are jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops, and maybe a baseball hat—done, love it,” he says almost apologetically. However, since his transition to New York, with its colder climates (“I still love how the seasons here actually change”), he has started appreciating finer outerwear, suits even. “The weather here”, he explains, “got me into pea coats, and tailored three-quarter length overcoats. In LA, where you can show up anywhere in flip-flops, he never even owned a suit. Now Brad owns three Dries van Nooten suits. “I love Dries, his stuff’s perfectly timeless.” Many other designers don’t cater to his body type, Brad laments, “Prada, Dior or Gucci, I can’t even fit into it. I don’t know why they make suits for fifteen year-old boy sizes, but that’s why my Drieses come out of the closet every fall.”
Recently he acquired his first bespoke Tuxedo (“Ralph Lauren, absolutely!”). But there’s something about him he can’t shake, it’s why, in his LA acting days, he was always sent to castings for the ‘cute-but-scruffy-guy’ roles. “Even wearing a tuxedo I look really unkempt. No matter what I wear, shirts come untucked and pants get wrinkled, and everything dishevels. But I guess that’s my style: I’m clean, but I’m messy. I’m a classic American male,” he laughs, “Livin’ my dream. In wrinkled pants.”