The 23rd issue has been curated by Francesco Risso, the Italian fashion designer and creative director of the Milan-based fashion house Marni.
Drawing upon an intimate yet diverse community of artists, musicians, writers, photographers, family and friends, A Magazine Curated By Francesco Risso is an analogue exploration of the print object through a myriad of visual and philosophical stimuli that question contemporary notions of living.
Divided into 20 distinct contributions across 240 pages, the issue is conceived as a compilation of scrapbooks – each a conceptual window into the minds and hearts of a protagonist or protagonists that offers a glimpse into their creative process or journey. Opening with a sketched or painted portrait, each chapter of the scrapbook is completely unique, featuring a plethora of lo-fi techniques from handwritten and mechanically typed pages to paper collages, illustration, painting, doodling and hand-retouched photography. The issue’s playful cover mimics a red vintage scrapbook, combining multiple finishing techniques including 3D scanning, a trompe l’œil embossed ‘tape’ spine, embossed ‘A’ and spot varnished portrait of Francesco Risso himself.
Within its pages, new commissioned works include visual portfolios photographed in Los Angeles, London, Milan and New York, with emphasis on celebrating individuality with a child-like yearning to explore. A catalogue of Marni objects and their fictional mythology by British writer Charlie Fox documented by the Italian photographer Andrea Artemisio is presented alongside Marni’s core ‘cabine’ of models photographed by Rachel Chandler.
In addition, a series of cut-out and perforated interactive games illustrated by Italian artist Flaminia Veronesi joins American artists Dan Colen and Lexie Smith’s photographic narrative of the coal miner and the canary, a philosophical manifesto of tent life by the Italian music and culture collective Terraforma, stylist Camilla Nickerson’s commission of new artworks with Marni artifacts and Spanish artist Paloma Blanco Casanova’s recontextualisation of vintage pornographic magazines. British brothers Cosmo Sheldrake and Entangled Lives author Merlin Sheldrake study natural microbiomes with spectrograms of hot sauce fermentation and images of fungi grown on Marni clothing photographed by Dorothy Sing Zhang, the latter of which appears alongside Risso’s Weimaraner George as a limited-edition photo print inserted within each copy of A#23.
The issue documents Francesco Risso’s boundless imagination, with a playful yet profound view of materiality, nature and the human spirit. A sense of liberation is perceivable throughout, from Sergio Cattivelli’s photographic series of the designer himself role-playing a myriad of characters, choreographer and artist Michele Rizzo’s poised figurative sculpture of endless lifetimes carved from clay and 90s Americana captured on film by Francesca Sorrenti. Twenty-one original portraits immortalise each contributor, bound together in a single publication that showcases the colourful whimsy of Francesco Risso and the graphic, colourful world of Marni.
Selected contributors include: Andrea Artemisio, Babak Radboy, Camilla Nickerson, Charlie Fox, Cosmo & Merlin Sheldrake, Dan Colen, Dev Hynes, Dorothy Sing Zhang, Flaminia Veronesi, Francesca Sorrenti, Jamie Hawkesworth, Jonah Hill, Jordan Hemingway, Julien d'Ys, Lexie Smith, Lola Montes, Michele Rizzo, Rachel Chandler, Sara Moonves, Sophie von Hellermann, Terraforma and Wilfrid Wood.
