Jonathan Becker: A Life in Portraiture
Photographer Jonathan Becker has documented the stars of the past half century. On this episode, he recalls his time as Brassaï's protege, New York in the '70s, and his decades of contributions to Vanity Fair.
This season, stylist Julie Ragolia is merely attending fashion shows, despite her typical residence backstage. Ragolia has styled Zegna runway shows for a number of seasons now, displaying her knack for unconventional combinations in unique mixtures of their sumptuous tailoring. Her prowess scales beyond the runway, with celebrity clients like Pedro Pascal and Riz Ahmed, and editorial features in WSJ Magazine, W, Fantastic Man, and others. And if you catch her outside the shows—or the photos of her there—you’ll know her sartorial savoir faire extends to her own wardrobe, as well. This fall fashion month, we asked her to share the Instagram accounts she looks to for inspiration, from styling a shoot and outfitting a client to simply getting dressed. —Camille Freestone
Cabmate
“Cabmate is a constant mood board for minimal and real moments in fashion, highlighting the elegance of fashion icons simply living life…seemingly in, out, or alongside cabs in New York. Though I’m from the city, I spend a lot more time in Europe these days. So when I see Cabmate in my feed, it always reminds me how grateful I am to have grown up in one of the most stylish cities in the world.”
rg_bunny2
“I don’t know who is behind this private account, but we follow each other on both X and Instagram, likely because we have very similar taste in art and culture. I like to think that the person behind the account includes ‘bunny’ in the handle because a single post so often sends me down a rabbit hole. Posts are never connected to current shows and are never promotional or intended to be a mood board. They are simply the musings of someone who clearly has a good eye.”
Lewis’s
“Lewis’s Mag offers some of the best fashion show criticism going, but only in stories. If you miss it, you miss it. I’m a bit that way with my Instagram. I don’t post often, but I do post a lot of stories. You have to follow along to understand where my mind is going or to see the threads between what I may post in a day. Lewis’s is that way, so I’m always excited to see it pop up in my feed. He also recently started a Substack that I look forward to digging into.”
Sisonek
“Sisonek is a gathering place in the form of a podcast. It’s led by one of my favorite designers, Drew Curry, of the Los Angeles–based label Airei. Drew holds some of the most interesting conversations with people from fashion, music, art, and design, but, for now, has under 400 followers. It’s truly an if-you-know-you-know kind of community, which makes each conversation he holds all the more meaningful.”
Steven Terrell Cogle
“Steven Cogle is what is classified as an ‘outsider artist,’ in the sense that he didn’t study art traditionally and doesn’t work within its conventional structures. He is, however, a brilliant painter and should immediately be scooped up by a gallery. Steven is from East New York—a not so gentle area of Brooklyn—which also happens to be where I grew up. I proudly hold several of his works and cannot wait for the world to discover this hidden gem.”
Michael Ragolia
“My brother, Michael, recently started making digital art collages and has joined Instagram in order to post them. He’s really good! I’ve been encouraging him to start adding commentary to explain his work, but, as is often the case with a big sister, let’s see how long it takes before he listens to my advice.”
Rethinking the Foundations of Architecture; the Keeper of the American West; and an Experimental American Painter
Chicago, “Germane Barnes: Columnar Disorder” (Until Jan. 27)
An architect, designer, and professor, Germane Barnes’ art and scholarship is redefining the assumptions of architecture: His thesis on “non-white contribution to Roman and Italian architecture” won him the Wheelwright Prize in 2021, and his work was featured in MoMA’s first exhibition to examine how race has influenced American architecture. “We get this one Eurocentric idea of what architecture is supposed to be, and it’s a very, very small representation of a field that is actually very diverse,” the Chicago native said in a 2021 interview. His first solo museum show reimagines ancient Greek columns, a foundation in the study of architecture, into designs that celebrate Black history and experience. artic.edu
Cincinnati, “Discovering Ansel Adams” (Until Jan. 19)
Infatuated with the sprawling landscapes of the American West, the American photographer spent his lifetime documenting and protecting its beauty (he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for “his efforts to preserve this country’s wild and scenic areas, both on film and on earth”). Presenting 80 photos and ephemera from the first half of his career, this show is a valuable reminder of the compelling power of photography in the day of iPhone photos and endless digitally created delights. cincinnatiartmuseum.org
London, “André Butzer” (Until Dec. 14)
From Stuttgart, André Butzer became known in the early 2000s for his colossal paintings of characters with perpetual side-eye. The painter cites sources of inspiration like Edvard Munch and Walt Disney—a mixture of the heavy emotions of European expressionism and American pop culture, and a reflection of the contrasting political poles Germans were undergoing at the turn of the century. In this show, Butzer presents 16 of his newest works, including colorful additions to an abstract series he began in 2010. maxhetzler.com
New York, “The Way I See It: Selections from the KAWS Collection” (Opens Oct. 10)
The American Pop artist KAWS is famed for his cartoonish sculptures (think Mickey Mouse with an edge) and a wild commercial success accompanying the rise of streetwear into the mainstream. Since the mid 1990s, he has also amassed a vast collection of 3,000 works on paper, including drawings as well as comics, commercial illustrations, and graffiti sketches. Two hundred of them—by a variety of artists including Willem de Kooning, Robert Crumb, Jim Nutt, and Gladys Nilsson—will be shown here. drawingcenter.org
Rome, “Helen Frankenthaler: Painting on Paper, 1990–2002” (Until Nov. 23)
“The landscapes were in my arms as I did it,” is how American painter Helen Frankenthaler described the compulsion behind her first soak-stained painting, Mountains and Sea, which spurred her professional career in 1952. Abandoning the paintbrush, Frankenthaler instead poured diluted oil paint straight onto the canvas. Later on, she would paint on paper the size of her large canvases. Eighteen of these ruminative paintings on paper are shown, some for the first time, in this exhibit. gagosian.com —Vasilisa Ioukhnovets
