King Kong #15

King Kong Issue 15 featuring :

Winnie Harlow

Winnie has redrawn how we perceive beauty on the catwalk and on the fashion spread. How we see what we see is the difference between pride and prejudice. Appreciating and recognising the range of beauty is win win. In this shoot sculptural spatial fantasies of the dresses by Japanese designer Ryunosuke Okazaki take you further on a journey of reconfiguration.

Photographed by Frank Ockenfels.

Florian Krewer

The New York based painter Florian Krewer creates his art from the heart. It’s felt and he paints things and people which touch him. It’s a world of extremes, the empty studio and the crowded city. It’s a form of therapy and a way of seeing. And what he sees is life – and one without boundaries or pre-definitions. It’s real though, and not an easy fantasy. It’s a reflection and realisation of what helps us redefine our world.
“I don’t want to live in paradise. I like confrontation, I like when things are uncomfortable, and when I am in the middle of the action. I don’t want to be pigeonholed, because I have many interests and preferences. I want to bring it all together in my own way.”

Artworks by Florian Krewer
Interview by Birte Kleemann
Special thanks Michael Werner Gallery

Raven

Reinventing The Dolls with Raven & Rose.

They are “sisters, best friends, wifes, family” : Rose and Raven don’t just share a flat in L.A., but also lots of memories and experiences together as music creators, sex workers, pole dancers, and performing artists. Their interview shows the power of reinvention and the bittersweet taste of remembering. The photography of Raphaël Chatelain has that quality of memory. Of remembering an event, or life, or feeling, or moment that might or might not belong to you. And as to the sex work itself: “It’s just a freedom that comes into your own hands and you realize that, yes, at some point I did have to do this for survival, and at some point I did do this because of whatever, but I could turn it into something that is powerful and empowering. Sexwork can be empowering.”

Naomi Sharon

First Lady of OVO Sound Naomi Sharon is playing chess, not checkers. A singer whose music seems to cross that particular musical territory of memory and longing. Of love being a game which we all seemed destined or doomed to play. All of us chess pieces, moving across a board following rules over which we have limited control…

“Masks are slipping, they slide
Overflowing water
drowning
Finally, I can’t no longer hide

Why do we feel like me
Alone, no longer scared to be
Losing track, I can’t breathe
An oasis of sense, I see”

Her latest single Another Life/Celestial is another journey of reflection.

Jordan Roth

Jordan Roth is a producer. A producer of shows which are award winning, and a producer of his own life, the public side of which is equally spectacular. But behind the glitter and couture there’s a steely sense of business, and genuine philanthropy for the world outside of the spotlight.

Photographed by Alice Hawkins.

“In this shoot, you are certainly seeing a combination of silent film star and Old Hollywood glamour, but a couple of decades later. So we’re in that space of the past. But there are also elements that pull us very much into the future. And sometimes I do that quite literally with what might seem a kind of futurism fantasy. The garment mixed with elements that pull us back to a nostalgic past. Be it early to mid-20th century because I have a fascination with those sorts of signposts in the past. That whole tension around the ephemeral, impermanence, past and future”.

Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker is one of the most subscribed and watched commentators on Twitch. Left wing and no stranger to controversy, he makes his mark by speaking up and talking loud when things need to be said. In conversation with novelist Alex Kazemi, they discuss and dissect the Schein und Sein of liberalism and sexual politics with some bloody photo images to give a face to the words on the page.

“People have a genuine sense of despair right now –– everything is out of their control. There’s this daily attitude towards life that nothing we do is ever going to change. People feel powerless over the institutions and inherently oppressive structures that we exit under, but it’s not like people directly recognize what the cause is and can associate or can point out and identify the villain –– they can’t. But they still feel the impact of it. When you don’t have an actual productive outlook that could give you some fulfillment and you don’t find anything that is genuinely interesting… everything is just constantly watching Instagram, watching TikTok, watching other people that are better looking than you, living better lives… their lives are fucking dog shit, too. But they present an insane, unattainable life. You’re looking for any kind of exit strategy you can.”

Lucas Blalock

Lucas Blalock revisits an image from the past to give to the readers in the present. The Original (The Smoker, 2014).

A master of photographic manipulation. What you see is what you might not get, until you realise that he’s playing with your mind and your eyes. And playful he is, there’s humour in the installations and irony in his writing. But humour is a serious business, and there’s always food for thought.

“I think we inevitably carry our past with us. We just more often do it behind the scenes than we do it public.”

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