Interviews from the world of art!

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Michael Lombardi – Sno Babies

Written By: Michael D. McClellan |

Michael Lombardi is used to laying it all on the line. Whether charging into a burning building as firefighter Mike Silletti in the critically acclaimed FX series Rescue Me, or rocking out as the lead singer for Apache Stone, the ruggedly handsome multihyphenate has built his career by going full throttle. His latest project – as a producer and star of the heart-wrenching Sno Babies, which depicts the grim realities of addiction and its effect on a middle class town – brings into full repose this unmitigable fact: The opioid epidemic in the United States is no longer relegated to places like Atlanta’s Bluff neighborhood, notorious for its gangs and its open air heroin market, where dealers swarm unfamiliar cars looking for new customers. Opioids have rolled through Middle America, decimating entire towns and snuffing out some of our best and brightest, killer drugs omnipotent in their reach and godlike in their sway over the addicted.

Into this crisis steps Lombardi, the creative force behind the first feature from Better Noise Films, a new venture from entertainment mogul Allen Kovac. Together, Lombardi and Kovac – whose storied career includes managing such artists as Bee Gee’s, Luther Vandross, Blondie, Meatloaf, Mötley Crüe, and The Cranberries – have crafted a gritty, character-driven film that peers voyeuristically into the descent of Kristen, the quintessential girl next door whose addiction starts with one oxy pill.

“The film is about a beautiful young girl from a very well-to-do family, a high schooler with the brightest future in the world ahead of her,” Lombardi says. “She has the full support of her parents, who have hired an SAT tutor and who dream of their daughter going to a great school like Princeton or Harvard. All of that changes when she goes to party and she’s introduced to an opioid by an injured football player. From that moment forward, this bright, rising star who is so full of potential morphs into someone quite different. Sno Babies shows us how her life spirals out of control after that dark turn, so the film is really about her demise.”

Directed by talented filmmaker Bridget Smith, Sno Babies is fictional only in the sense that the characters are representative of what’s happening in towns across the country. Smith’s research, which includes time spent with several current and recovering addicts, gives Sno Babies serious street cred. Visiting the Philly neighborhood of Kensington, the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast, provided Smith with a glimpse into the abyss: Dealers out in the open, calling out brand names, some even handing out free samples; addicts injecting heroin needles into their arms, their necks, and the skin between their toes; zombies everywhere, some of them limp and nodding off, others laying on the ground looking dead.

Smith walks down this dark road with Kristen, brilliantly played by relative newcomer Katie Kelly. We can’t help but ache for her character, from an early scene when Kristen is violated at a party, right through to the closing credits. The critics are going to love Kelly’s performance. Audiences will be chillingly reminded how one bad decision can change everything.

Katie Kelly and Paola Andino – Photo Courtesy Rogers & Cowan PMK

“Bridget spent a lot of time with both young co-stars, Katie Kelly and Paola Andino, before shooting this film,” Lombardi says. “Bridget is a wonderful director, and she’s also naturally warm and supportive. I think these were critical elements when it came to making this film, because they were willing to take that risk with her. If you trust the director, then you are willing to go there. Bridget really nurtured these two young ladies, earned their trust, and got the best performances out of them as a result.”

None of this would have been possible without the one-two punch of Lombardi and Kovac. Sno Babies is a product of their shared vision, Lombardi smitten by Mike Walsh’s script and Kovac drawn in by the subject matter.

“Allen continues to put his time, energy, and money into fighting Substance Abuse Disorder, especially where artists and actors are concerned,” Lombardi says. “We’re losing talents like Prince, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Heath Ledger to this epidemic. Allen is doing everything he can to stem the tide.”

For his part, Lombardi continues to lay it on the line. He’s now the Vice President of Production for Better Noise Films, and will star in the company’s second major release, The Retaliators, scheduled to drop in 2021. The William Esper grad is a dad now, a tennis fanatic, and a hard rocker who still jams onstage with his band. His 93-episode run on Rescue Me continues to open doors to new opportunities. Sno Babies is just scratching the surface.

“This is a phenomenal film with a powerful message,” Lombardi says. “I’m very proud of the way it turned out, and I hope we’ve done our small part in this battle against the opioid crisis.”

Sno Babies will be released on Sept. 29.

What attracted you to the script?

In part because there’s a stereotype that still exists in people’s minds. There are a lot of people who still think that opioid and heroin addicts are only those who are homeless and living on the street. I was just as guilty of that same false judgment at times, because, as a young man, that was what I saw. Everything is different today. This epidemic isn’t confined to the inner city. It’s affecting every corner of the world in which we live. It has forced us to reconsider every assumption we’ve ever made about addiction. These are real lives being destroyed – human beings that have a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a home. The threat is real, it’s unprecedented, and it can literally affect anyone. What I loved when I read the script is this: Here’s a young girl who you would think this could never happen to, not in a million years. She has so much going for her; she’s smart, attractive, and popular…and yet one bad decision changes the trajectory of her life forever. It is quite a journey, and it gets dark at times, but I don’t think that there is any other way to tell the story of this horrible crisis.

Did you start out as a creative producer on Sno Babies?

I got into this film as an actor first, and then ended up as a producer. I took the role because I really enjoyed the script, and because it was being shot in Philadelphia. My character and my storyline weaves in and out of the two high school girls’ lives who are the center of this film. He certainly crosses roads throughout – in in a big way – as the film progresses.

How did you meet Allen Kovac?

Our kids go to school together in Connecticut. I’ve had several bands, and had a record deal back in the day with MySpace Records, so we had a natural connection because of music. Then, on the acting side, for seven seasons I was a series regular on a television show called Rescue Me. My band was actually written into that show, so there was that hook as well.

We met at a charity event that I did at our kids’ school. My band performed, and I hosted it like a late night show – I even had an opening monologue [laughs]. We had this shared a love of music, and he knew that I was a musician and an actor, so we hit it off immediately. At some point that evening he said, ‘Hey, maybe we can get involved in a film together some day.’ If you know Allen, when he says something he means it. He also talked about his other passion, which was bringing art education to the kids in our small town. He felt that the kids growing up there weren’t exposed to a ton of art, and thought that it might be a nice opportunity to start an internship program tailored to the arts. That way kids wouldn’t have to travel to New York City or other places for that kind of exposure. We just kept throwing ideas around like that, and I could tell that Allen had an open mind about a lot of things. I quickly recognized that he was the kind of guy that I could work with.

Allen Kovac – Courtesy of Eleven Seven Label Group

How did Allen become involved in Sno Babies?

Allen already had a long and successful career managing acts like the Bee Gees, Blondie, and Mötley Crüe. Then, in 2006, he started Better Noise Music, which became an immediate success. Mötley Crüe, Five Finger Death Punch, and The HU are part of Better Noise label today. His next move was to jump into film and original content by starting Better Noise Films, which is part of the Better Noise Entertainment shingle.

Well, I happened to be at dinner one night with Allen and [Mötley Crüe bassist] Nikki Sixx, and they were talking about the heroin epidemic and this opioid crisis. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m doing a film about this exact subject matter!’ So I told Allen about Sno Babies. We talked a little bit and then he said, ‘Look, come over to the house on Sunday and let’s talk some more about this project.’

I went over to his house, and we chatted for close to four hours in his den. The guy just works so hard – his little boy had to come in at one point and say, ‘Dad, let’s go. It’s Sunday.’ [Laughs.] He sat with me and I told him all about the film. He had so much interest in it – and so much passion for it – that I could tell that he was all in. That really jumpstarted where we are today. I got a sizzle reel together for him, and then, after several meetings and many months of consideration, Allen ended up selecting this small, independent film to be the first project in the Better Noise catalog. Not long after that I was asked to come onboard as the Vice President of Production. So that’s basically how we started Better Noise Films, and how Sno Babies became our venture’s first movie.

How hands-on was Allen?

Allen immediately rolled up his sleeves and immersed himself in the writing, the rewrites, the pick-up shots, the reshoots, and a lot of different things in order to help the story crystalize and deliver its message, which is deeply personal to both Allen and Nikki Sixx.

Allen Kovac has long believed that the industry needs to better support artists, helping them to maintain their health and take responsibility for their “bad deeds.” This film seems to fall in line with that philosophy.

Very much so, and that is such a great point. The mission of the film is to save lives. In fact, both Allen and Nikki Sixx are so passionate about this cause and hold it so close to their hearts that Better Noise Films will be donating its share of the profits to the Global Recovery Initiatives Foundation, where both men are new board members. All of the artists’ royalties from the soundtrack are also being donated to the fund, and Allen is going to match their contributions. The soundtrack includes two tracks from SIXX:A.M., and Top 10 hits from Country/Rock star Cory Marks (Outlaws & Outsiders) and from chart toppers Bad Wolves (the #1 hit Sober). There’s also new music from Eva Under Fire, From Ashes to New, and Escape The Fate.

The message wrapped inside of Sno Babies is indeed powerful stuff.

People can look at this film and say that it’s Hollywood, that it’s fiction, that it’s just a made up storyline with made up characters who aren’t real addicts. Sno Babies is a film based on facts. The writer, Michael Walsh, has really done his research on the subject matter. The thing is, this film is a representation of what is really going on in our country. The fabric of small towns is being torn apart by this crisis, and promising young lives are being destroyed every single day.

You don’t have to look very far to find someone who has been touched by the opioid epidemic.

There is a very small town in Connecticut, and every single person that I’ve spoken to in that town has been affected by this crisis in some way. Whether it’s an aunt, an uncle, a brother, a sister, a parent, or a friend…everyone you talk to has a story. I was having a conversation with the high school ice hockey coach in this small town, and he told me that one of his players died of a heroin overdose at home, in his own bedroom. This is happening in Middle Class America. This is happening to kids living in good homes with good, hardworking parents. That’s the other thing I wanted to express to you about this movie and why it appealed to me. The parents care. They care so much, but they are working all of the time in order to provide for their families. Because they’re not as connected, things like this slip right under their noses.

The film really makes that point so well. So many of these victims come from loving homes.

That is so very true. You can’t watch the movie and not get it. The parents are extremely busy with work. They are under financial stress, and they are trying their best to provide for their two daughters. The mother’s boss is putting pressure on her to meet quota, which causes stress on the marriage, which in turn is another reason the warning signs are missed.

Let’s talk about the cast, specifically the two leads.

Sno Babies is a film that’s completely character-driven. The lead of the film is a girl named Katie Kelly. I think she is going to break out from this film. She hasn’t done a ton before this, but her work in the film is really spectacular. You can’t take your eyes off of her, from a promising beginning through her descent into darkness. Her best friend in the film is Hannah, played by Paola Andino. Paola is very young, but she’s done a lot. She was on was on a Nickelodeon show, Every Witch Way, for a long time.

What impressed me the most about these two young ladies was their dedication to the script and their work ethic. The subject matter is very intense, and the script is dark. These two characters go on a journey together, and I have to say, I was so impressed with how Katie and Paola jumped off that cliff as actors. And then, when I saw the rough cuts, I was blown away. They are both fantastic. They carry the film. Without them, we wouldn’t be talking right now. They are so good, and they really tell the story beautifully.

Bridget Smith, Katie Kelly, and Paola Andino

Better Noise Films has several other projects in the works. Please tell me about The Retaliators.

I brought the script to Allen and he really liked it. It’s a great script – it’s unique in that it’s a psychological thriller with horror elements and heart. It touches upon morality. Religion. Justice. Like Sno Babies, this film is character-driven. Bridget is actually co-directing this film with Samuel Gonzalez, Jr., which makes for a great pairing: Bridget is such a wonderful storyteller, and she relates so well to the characters, and Samuel Gonzalez brings such great skill as a director of thrillers and horror. He is so stylized in visual – his shots are incredible. His work is David Fincher-esque. So, the two of them really complement each other. It’s not like one of them is stronger than the other. The combination of them both in this film is spectacular.

Where did you find the script for The Retaliators?

It goes back to when I had my record deal. I used to write with these two brothers, Darren and Jeff Allen Geare, and we became friends. I hadn’t spoken to them in a while, but I needed some help with a song that I’d written for that charity event, a song called Heaven and Hell Collide. So I called them up and we started talking about all of the scripts that they had been writing over the past several years, and one of them in particular caught my attention. I immediately asked them to send it to me, and that’s how I found The Retaliators.

What does the cast look like for this film?

It stars Marc Menchaca from Ozark and Stephen King’s The Outsider. We also have Joseph Gatt, who is a veteran actor who had a really nice role in the show Banshee Origins, as well as roles in Game of Thrones and Tim Burton’s Dumbo. So he’s been around, and he’s fantastic in it.

Here’s the wonderful thing: The musicians that we were able to use for the Sno Babies soundtrack, we were also able to put them into cameo roles in this film. I’m really proud to say that it is not gratuitous in any manner. If you were watching the movie, and if you didn’t know they were musicians, you would think that they were actors. Five Finger Death Punch plays a motorcycle gang, and you couldn’t cast better actors to play the part. They are fantastic in it. I could go on and on. The musicians also came ready to play. They were prepared, and they brought it big, every one of them. So they were phenomenal with their cameo roles, as well as supporting the soundtrack for the that movie.

Let’s talk about Michael Lombardi. You attended the prestigious William Esper Studio in New York. There have been some notable alumni go through that program, including Jeff Goldblum, Patricia Heaton, and Larry David.

Another great – and I love this guy – Sam Rockwell went to Esper. I love that school so much. It was such a wonderful foundation for me. Marc Menchaca, who is one of the leads in The Retaliators with me, is also an Esper grad. He and I have a lot of great scenes together in that film, which is another reason I can’t wait for it to come out. Esper was really special. It’s an actor’s school, in that it’s all about the work.

Michael Lombardi – Rescue Me – Photo Courtesy FX

You were a musician at the time, but you transitioned over to acting.

I was a young guy in New York City, playing in several bands and pursuing my career as a musician. Then, one summer, I took an acting class at William Esper. It was an intro class, and I really fell in love with acting. Not long after that I started to produce small plays. One of them was John Patrick Shanley’s Danny in the Deep Blue Sea. It’s an intense, two-person play. We did it in a small little theater, with barely 100 people in the audience. That play was as if you were looking through a window into someone’s life, but you shouldn’t be watching. Such a raw story.

I enrolled at William Esper not long after that and went there for two years. From there I landed my first professional acting gig, as a bartender on Saturday Night Live. Kate Hudson and Radiohead were the guests, so that was really cool. I got to watch Radiohead rehearse, which was an awesome experience because of my love for music.

And then you landed a pivotal role on the short-lived ABC crime comedy The Job.

I played ‘Manuel the Cabana Boy’ on an episode called The Vacation [laughs]. That happened because I met a guy named Denis Leary, and we became friends. One day, he was like, ‘Mikey, here, read this,’ and he threw me the script to a show called Rescue Me. I  went in and auditioned for Sony, Fox, and FX, and ended up getting the part.

You worked with Denis Leary on a mockumentary just before joining him on Rescue Me.

It was a Comedy Central show called Project Searchlight. This show was basically a spoof on Project Greenlight, which was created by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to give first-time filmmakers the chance to direct a feature film. I played a young guy who gets to make his own TV show, but everything falls apart. It was really funny. Every single thing that could go wrong goes wrong.

Michael Lombardi

Rescue Me is the show that really put you on the map.

Absolutely. I read for Rescue Me and got the part, and then I went on a seven year, 100-episode journey as a series regular. It was life-changing. Looking back, I realize now how much I learned from Denis. He was not only the star of Rescue Me, but he was also the producer and co-creator of the show. Being around him on that show for seven years, I learned so much that has come into play for me now at this point in my career. It helped prepare me for my role with Better Noise Films, and my new life as a producer. I think you’ll see the results with Sno Babies. It’s a great film with an important message.

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Philippe Halaburda – Abstract Emotion

Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Philippe Halaburda is a busy man. The French-born, New York-based abstract artist is a conduit of emotion, absorbing the environment around him and translating it, prolifically, into works that pull and tug on our subconscious.  Abstract, geometric shapes burst from his imagination, his color choices not unlike the works of the late modern master Henri Matisse, who also got his start in the South of France. There is no off switch: Halaburda’s hyper-inquisitive DNA fuels the inspiration behind his work, brilliant pieces created on a variety of mediums including canvas, paper, plexiglass, cardboard, and wood. He relentlessly explores the world around him, his iPhone at the ready, his mind ablaze with possibility. Equal parts New Age artist and old-school cartographer, Halaburda often melds these two passions, creating imaginary topographies that move the needle on an deeply emotional level. It’s all part of what makes Philippe Halaburda deliciously unique.

“Art is my love,” Halaburda says, settling into the interview. “When I am creating art, it’s important for me to have my own style. I’m not interested in doing something that has already been done.”

Like genius abstract artist Mark Rothko, who moved through many artistic styles until reaching his signature 1950s motif of soft, rectangular forms floating on a stained field of color, Halaburda has also undergone his own transformation. Several of them, actually. The purity of his abstractions and methodical practice by which he arrives at them make his work instantly recognizable, and the radically simplified elements reflect what he sees as the spiritual order underlying the visible world, creating a clear, universal aesthetic language within his canvases. While his art has been compared to the Suprematism movement of late Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich, there are also traces of the De Stijl movement championed by the Dutch master, Piet Mondrian. It’s as if both styles were fed through the blender of Halaburda’s mind until something entirely new poured out.

“For me, relationships are the foundation of everything I create. Whether I’m in the studio with brush and canvas, or I’m on the street with my iPhone, my art is connected in some way to the deep, emotional elements built into relationships – whether that is contradiction, or harmony, or something entirely different.”

“Adhhaferaa”, acrylic, felt tip marker & pencil on stretched canvas 100 x 100 cm- 39″ x 39″ USA – 2018 Philippe Halaburda

Born in Meaux, France, a serious rugby accident landed Halaburda in the hospital, ending his athletic career and propelling him on a the journey to where he is today.

“I was in the hospital for two weeks,” he says. “I was sixteen at the time, and it was during this period that I started to draw. I drew comics, because I wanted to tell stories, and I discovered that I liked it. There was no stopping by this point.”

Like Andy Warhol, who was struck down with a neurological disorder which kept him off school for nearly a year, Halaburda’s recovery from a badly broken knee took six long months. Similarly, both leaned on art to pass the time.

“I continued to draw comics,” Halaburda says. “Every day I enjoyed it more. It was something my parents noticed and supported. Once they realized how passionate I was about art, they encouraged me to think about a career where I could use my creativity.”

Following graduation, Halaburda went away to study graphic design at EDTA SORNAS in Paris. He spent three years there, in a small class of 20-25 students, where his formal academic training ranged from nudes to still life to illustrations. He also started to paint during this time, first on large paper and then on canvas. And then, a year after graduation, Halaburda received the ultimate validation that he should pursue art as a career.

“In 1996, I organized my first exhibition in Paris,” Halaburda says. “There were twelve paintings in the exhibition, and I sold three of those to a young curator. Up until that point, I’d never imagined trying to become a professional artist. I was still drawing comics and doing illustrations on paper…it was not my dream to become a painter. Later I started drawing the same characters on large paper, and after that I started to paint a little bit, which led to my first exhibition. It was a fun period in my life, because I was creating art and trying to see what would happen.”

Halaburda held down an assortment of odd jobs as he continued to launch his young art career – working shifts in bars, cafés, and restaurants, all while continuing to paint. He also shared a small flat with two friends from Switzerland, one of which who returned home over the summer to work with his father. Halaburda joined him, met a girl, and suddenly found himself on the move.

“The Errstii quantum 7”, acrylic, color tape, pencil & paper 61 x 48 cm – 22″ x 19″ – USA – 2019 Philippe Halaburda

“She lived in Bern, so I ended up relocating,” says Halaburda. “We were married for three years. I was still painting, but during this period my pallet changed. I was using cold colors…blues, primarily…my paintings were mostly interior scenes, and were influenced by being inside so much during the long, cold winters.”

Halaburda’s style continued to evolve during this period. While still figurative, he was no longer focused on drawing characters as he had in France. Instead, he was slowly moving toward abstract expressionism, combining shapes on the canvas, twisting and bending them into something altogether different.

“Up until this point, I had been committed to drawing figures, using black outlines to define the shapes and then filling in with color in a very traditional way. It wasn’t a conscious decision to go in a different direction. It was a very natural progression.”

Relocating to Aix-en-Provence, a university city in the South of France, Halaburda’s pallet changed yet again. His work became more pink, with a focus on brighter colors.

“I was still painting characters, even though the background was becoming more abstract. It might be a simple sketch, but you might only see the head of the character. The rest would be combined with the background in some interesting way.”

Between 2009 and 2012, Halaburda abandoned figurative painting altogether. Untethered from its restraints, he could fully immerse himself in the emotional center of his art.

“It was the final leap for me,” he says. “I had taken some time to focus on other things, such as graphic design and theatre direction. When I returned to art, it was with a renewed energy and a different perspective.”

Inspired and restless, Halaburda put on solo exhibits across Southern France – the port city of Marseille, the communes of Nailloux and Châteauneuf du Pape, the city of Avignon – but struggled to make ends meet. It was a pivotal moment, one that changed the trajectory of his life.

“I changed my website from French to English,” he says. “I had decided that I wanted to leave Southern France, and I started making plans to move to London. It felt like a natural step for me, because I wasn’t selling enough to continue working as an artist.”

“Phhaetonn Retioluus 1” acrylic, felt tip colored, pencil on paper 30 x 20 cm – 12″ x 8″, USA, 2018 Philippe Halaburda

As chance would have it, an art dealer in the United States landed on Halaburda’s website. Convinced that the colorful, geometric abstracts would be well-received stateside, he reached out and proposed that the artist pay a visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2013, Halaburda’s exhibit debuted at the prestigious Peyton Wright Gallery, boosting both his Q-Rating and his bottom line.

“That was a turning point for me,” Halaburda says. “I was making ten times the money for the same art that I was selling in France, so I started making plans to move to the United States. I decided that New York City was the best place for me, so in 2016 I made the leap and opened my studio on Bogart Street in Brooklyn.”

Now fully immersed in the New York art scene, and with a thriving business and dozens of shows and exhibitions under his belt, Philippe Halaburda continues to push the envelope with his art while building on his reputation as one of the city’s top abstract artists.

Matisse, Malevich and Mondrian would no doubt be proud.

What inspires you?

Since the beginning, my art has been very autobiographical. I’m telling my own story through my paintings – I try to express my subconscious thought, my memories, and my emotions. All along, I’ve been influenced by the things that surround me. When I was in Paris, I was inspired by the light, the historical backgrounds, the canals, and things like that. In Switzerland, it was the weather. When I moved to New York, my style became more chaotic, linear, and geometric. I don’t use curves anymore because I don’t see curves in the city. I am inspired by the topography and cartography. I break the grid to create my own interpretation of New York. So, inspiration comes from the places that I live. My art is a reflection of what I am feeling, and how I am interacting with the world around me.

You abandoned figurative art for abstract art.

A figure can still be present in abstract art. It might not look like a physical object, but it’s still there, distilled down to its most basic elements. It’s like zooming in and taking a closeup look at what’s inside the object; the emotions, the feelings, the life that pours out of it.

Do you ever suffer from the artist’s equivalent of writer’s block?

My creativity is like a faucet. It’s like when you go to the kitchen, turn on the water, fill up the glass, and then turn the faucet back off again. So, creativity is there for me whenever I want it. It never dries up. I’ve never had a problem in that way, because there has always been something creative that comes to me. It could be good, it could be bad, but the creativity is always there.

Do you ever suffer from burnout?

Art is something that excites me, and makes me feel like a little kid. I never suffer from stress when it comes to my art. I enjoy it. I don’t want to control it, and I don’t want to know what is going to happen. I just let it happen. I only concern myself with painting when I am in the moment. I want to surprise myself with what I create. And as long as I am having fun, and creating something positive for the people who enjoy my art, then I’m going to be happy.

The artist in his studio – Philippe Halaburda

Is it true that you multitask when creating your art?

Whether I’m working on paper or on canvas, I often don’t work on just one at a time. I might work on ten at a time. It’s my way of keeping things interesting, and it helps me to remain intuitive and authentic. It’s also how I push myself to the border between control and no control.

Jackson Pollack often tapped into the dark corners of his mind. Where do you go?

Living in New York, it is easy to be up and down. This city can make you bipolar. Jackson Pollack was a reclusive and volatile personality, and he struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. I don’t have these problems. I have a skill to create images every day, and I enjoy producing work that people enjoy, so I don’t have to enter into a dark place when I draw or paint.

What’s it like reading reviews about your work?

I’ve never had a critic write something grossly negative about my work but, even so, that wouldn’t bother me. I’m open to any critic, they can say anything that they want. Maybe someone doesn’t understand my art because they think my art is not easy to access, but that is something that doesn’t upset me in the least. I enjoy bringing a piece of work to life. Whatever happens after that, I can’t control.

Do you have anxiety when your work premiers at an exhibit?

No, I’m confident that the art will speak for itself. I also see the proper distance in my work – when it’s finished, and it’s hanging in a gallery or displayed at an art fair, then it’s not for me anymore. It’s for the audience.

Do you ever complete a piece of art? Or do you abandon it?

When I look back at my first exhibition in 1996 to the most recent piece of art I’ve created today, I realize that they are all connected in some way. So in that sense, the art that I create is never abandoned, but it’s never completed, either. That’s because each piece is connected to the next piece that I create.

When did you sell your first piece of art in the United States?

In 2010, I decided to take a break from painting. I started working as a designer and an art director, which is what I did for the next two years.  And then, in 2012, I started to paint again. I decided to change my website from French to English, because I was trying to find galleries in France, but nothing was happening. At this time, an art dealer from Santa Fe, New Mexico, came across my website. He contacted me and said that he thought my work would do very well in the United States, so I traveled to Santa Fe to meet him.  He started promoting my work to some galleries in Santa Fe, including the prestigious Peyton Wright Gallery. We quickly sold two large pieces at a very good price, which was about ten times more than I would have gotten in France.

Abstract thinker: “As an abstract artist in New York, my work process delves into the complex undercurrents of intimate and collective interactions.” – Philippe Halaburda

Was there a pivotal moment when you decided to follow your path as an artist?  Is there a milestone in your history that has really influenced your career?

I studied graphic design in Paris, and graduated in 1996. It was a great experience, as I received some art history and academical teachings that were very valuable. At this time in my life, I was drawing more comics and illustrations. It’s only after graduation that I started to adapt my characters on larger supports and then on canvas. I consider myself a self-taught artist. When I started to paint on canvas, I considered it as something temporary before I moved on. I never imagined that I would be doing this 25 years later.

Can you tell me about the process of making your work?

I work in a very spontaneous and instinctive way. I need that to stay focused and in motion when I paint. To keep this state of intuition highly active, I’ve discovered different ways to work: One technique is to work on different pieces at the same time. For me, it’s a good way to stay authentic and sincere during the process of creation. When I start, I don’t know what will happen. There are no sketches, only accidents, choices and risks in my painting. I like to be just in that thin border between control and losing control. My goal is to find the right visual conclusion of this process each time I do a new artwork.

Do you have a favorite photograph or painting, which inspires you?  A favorite artist, perhaps?

Today, not anymore. I can appreciate works and style of other artists but I don’t have a favorite one. I loved Jean-Michel Basquiat, not only because of the work but more because of his free approach of art. When he was painting, he was totally free. It’s something I really try to keep in mind. I like different aesthetics in photos and paintings, but I don’t have a favorite one. This is likely because I don’t want to copy, or to be influenced, or to follow a certain trend. For example, when I was living in Bern, Switzerland, I discovered the art of Paul Klee. I have been influenced by him – the same with Picasso, and with Matisse in the South of France. I recognize their impact and heritage, but I never tried to follow them. I met them – in a symbolic way – because I was following my own path.

Please tell me about your outdoor murals.  And, is there a bit of Banksy in Philippe Halaburda?

No, I don’t think there is some Banksy in my art. My images are less direct and probably more conceptual. I have only done three murals. I have a new concept for the coming months: Color tapes on the sidewalks, pavements, and streets of Brooklyn or Manhattan. I am looking for a new way to adapt my style to this kind of urban environment, and I think this is one that can fit perfectly to my visual universe.

Your style is distinctive – strong, colorful abstract shapes filled with emotion  – uniquely Halaburda.  Have you ever thought about translating your art in the world of fashion?

I’ve never directly thought about that, to be honest. I know my art can be used for a lot of commercial purposes; fashion is one of them. I’ve never had the opportunities, I suppose, and that explains why it didn’t really happen. But it’s something I would really like to do. I can imagine creating a complete graphic and visual universe for a new collection, for example.

Your work unlocks geometric patterns, breathing refreshingly new life into such unglamorous subject matter as conduit, pipes and cables.  Could you see yourself as an architect in another life?

Yes absolutely! I think I would be a very intuitive architect, and I would enjoy breaking architectural codes and rules that are followed today.

Tell me about your relationship with architecture, and how deep that relationship goes in your work?

My relationship with architecture is unconscious, because even if I like a certain type of architecture – modern, pure, elegant and graphic, for example – I never really had interest to study it. For me, I am attracted by the visual and graphic aspect of it, not the technical one. I think I realized this when I was working on the effects of architecture on human life when I came to live in New York City. Being in a big city like New York opened my eyes. It really helped help me to understand my themes as artist.

How do you view relationships in your art?

For me, relationships with others are probably the most important source of inspiration in art. How we interact all together, how I can feel apart or excluded from the world as human, as an artist. I probably have more sensitive approach than most anyone else, and I feel the necessity to express that. I need to. After more than twenty years of practice as artist, I can say it’s a way to accept who I am and what I want to bring to this world. What does that mean today, living in a time like our modern and crazy world? What are the true values of unconscious connections, the ones that not only make all of us unique, but also bring us all together? How I translate all these psychological aspects in my art, that is the real challenge.

New York in the 1950s witnessed an explosion in abstract expressionism. Now that you live in New York, what is your take on some of the great art created during this time period?  And do you see yourself at the forefront of a modern day abstract movement – New York Abstract Expressionism 2.0?

Yes. Prior to the ‘50s there were a lot of European painters who came to the United States, many of them because of the events in Europe. I think they influenced the American painters who were living here. I think that art today has no more borders. Art has cultural roots, but as an artist, I feel – because I came to New York City – that I belong to the lineage of this art history in a way. I hope my art has a lasting artistic value – time will either confirm it or not. For the moment, it’s hard to think about because I am living it. My style is different from the art courants, but I feel I am part of global art history. I am also a very independent artist. I don’t belong to a group of artists. Today, being an artist is probably more of an individual process than the collective approach it was a few decades ago. So, if I can be the one who represents the New York Abstract Expressionism 2.0, I will be flattered.

How did growing up in France shape your artistic sensibilities?

I think in France, we have a very strong connection to history, art, literature. Of course, not everyone is like that. My family is not really into it, but because I followed graphic studies, literature, etc., it definitely impacts my own sensibility.

What have been your most exciting and challenging artistic commissions, and why?

My first commission in New York City was in July 2016. It was a black-and-white mural on the backyard wall of an art residency in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was quite a big one and it took me so much more time than expected to finish it, mainly because of the hot, humid weather, the bad quality of the wall, etc. At the same time, I working on another commission for a hotel in the Bahamas. It was a huge canvas in three parts. It was funny, because this project had the same deadline as the outdoor mural.

Are there young artists that you follow these days or feel a particular connection with?

To be honest, not really. With Instagram, I receive a lot of contacts from young artists who wants to get in touch or share their work with me. I am still on my very own and personal path because I don’t feel established enough as artist. I am still very far from that. And it’s probably good because it pushes me to stay active and renew myself. It’s also a way to realize that my art is seen, appreciated and respected by other artists. It’s funny because, I was the one who were contacting older artists 20, 25 years ago and now, it’s my turn to be approached by younger ones.

Philippe Halaburda
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Pharrell Williams – Star Power

Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Pharrell Williams never sleeps. How can he? The multi-hyphenate superstar is insatiably inquisitive, his interests ranging from the mysteries of deep space to the provocative genius of artists as varied as Daniel Arsham and Marina Abramovic, his mind in a constant state of restless exploration.  That Williams can move seamlessly across the spectrum of art, fashion, film and music, all while collaborating with a Who’s Who of pop culture as only Pharrell can, proves that the man on the other end of this interview isn’t quite human but something more, Hu2.0 maybe, a Next Gen creative with alien DNA coursing through his veins. What other explanation can there be?

“No sir, there’s no truth to that rumor,” Williams says with a laugh.  And then, when pressed for a plausible explanation: “I’m indebted to God and the universe for giving me the time to do what I do, and for putting me in position to make the most of my opportunities. From there I follow my instincts.”

Williams’s creative universe is as diverse – and damn near as infinite – as the physical one in which we all exist, heavenly constellations populated with a dozen Grammy Awards (and counting), two Academy Award nominations, and an impressive dossier of hit songs, designer collections, art exhibitions, and eclectic collaborations.  Exactly where Skateboard P gets the drive is anybody’s guess. How he does it while looking younger than he did twenty years ago only fuels speculation that Williams is not of this Earth. Never mind that this hardworking N.E.R.D. was once fired from three different McDonald’s in Virginia Beach, or that he didn’t have career goals growing up. Williams plunged headlong into keyboards and drums at an early age, laid the groundwork for The Neptunes during a seventh-grade band camp, and parlayed an audience with Teddy Riley into a lucrative career as a singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, fashion designer and much, much more.

Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo: The Neptunes

So, which is it? God’s plan? The universe? Alien DNA? The only certainty is that a young Pharrell Lanscilo Williams stood out at Princess Anne High School mostly for being different. He loved music but didn’t gravitate to any particular clique. He didn’t try to fit in. He was a black kid hooked on Star Trek and hanging with white kids mostly, riding his skateboard at Mount Trashmore and listening to groups like Suicidal Tendencies and Dead Kennedys. In 1990, Williams and Chad Hugo formed The Neptunes, dissecting A Tribe Called Quest records and trying to figure out why their beats gripped them and refused to let go.  And then, as if by divine intervention or some otherworldly encounter, the duo was discovered by Riley, the Harlem-born record producer who’d had enough of New York City and decided to relocate his studio to, of all places, Virginia Beach – a five minute walk from Princess Anne.

“Who really knows why he moved into my back yard,” says Williams. “I used to think it was pure luck, but now I think there’s more to it than that. I don’t believe these things don’t happen by chance. The timing of the move lined up perfectly with where I was on my journey. A year or two later, a few years earlier, and who knows? Everything changes. We wouldn’t have had the same opportunity.”

Williams and Hugo, the shy Filipino boy who attended nearby Kempsville High School and shared Pharrell’s love for Eric B. & Rakim and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, didn’t just seize the opportunity presented by Riley. They used it as a springboard to dominate the music scene, their work earning a string of Grammys and garnering walls of gold and platinum records. Consider: The Neptunes racked up 24 Top 10 hits in the late 1990s and early 2000s, becoming one of the most successful production teams in pop. At one point in 2003, The Neptunes were responsible for a whopping 43% of the music being played on US radio, and 20% in the UK. Among the hits: Drop It Like It’s Hot, the classic 2004 production for Snoop Dogg, which sported skittering beats and swishing, pulsing synths, reminiscent of the music heard on ‘80s Atari video games.

Pharrell with Snoop Dogg

“We wanted a different sound, so we went with something that sounded like a can of spray paint,” Williams explains. “That ‘ssss’ sound is what we ended up placing on top of the song, it was different, like us.”

Different can also be applied to N.E.R.D (No-One Ever Really Dies), the band formed by Williams and Hugo, along with Tidewater-area pal Shay Haley. Flavored with funk and hip-hop, the experimental rock band released its second album in 2004, Fly or Die, which reached Number 6 on the charts and stamped Williams as a gifted singer in his own right.

The Neptunes continued its hot streak over the next several years, producing for everyone from Gwen Stefani to Kanye West to Beyoncé and Britney Spears.  And that’s just the music. Through Rizzoli, Williams released a lavish coffee-table book filled with images of the many products he has designed in collaboration with other artists and fashion designers. He hosted ARTIST TLK on YouTube’s Reserve Channel, interviewing some of the world’s most creative and interesting people (think Spike Lee, Usher and Tony Hawk, the show topped off with naked women serving drinks, and you begin to get the idea). He opened boutiques on West Broadway in New York. He co-founded apparel brands Ice Cream Clothing and Billionaire Boys Club. He’s curated art shows like This Is Not a Toy at the Toronto Design Exchange. All while pouring time, energy and money into his charity foundation, From One Hand To Another, which supports young people living in communities at risk around the country.

And all while still professing to be human, just like the rest of us.

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When it comes to the music biz, 2013 was The Year of Pharrell. The hit maker figured prominently in 2013’s most massive (and seemingly unavoidable) gangbuster singles: Daft Punk’s Get Lucky and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, with both competing against each other for the coveted Record of the Year Grammy. (Get Lucky walked away with the hardware.) And then there was the ubiquitous cherry on top: Happy. The song, originally written for CeeLo and part of the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, blew up after Williams came up with a brilliant marketing idea – a twenty-four hour video for the song, featuring a diverse cast of characters, including the artist and some famous friends, dancing along to the track. Happy peaked at No. 1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and 19 other countries. It became the best-selling song of 2014 in the United States with 6.45 million copies, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. That it took Williams ten tries to get it right is lost on nearly everyone but the artist himself.

“I got in my own way,” he says. “It wasn’t until I relaxed that everything opened up and the right song presented itself. As soon as it did, I knew it was the right fit.”

Pharrell Williams accepts the award for best pop solo performance for Happy at the 57th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

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Yes, Pharrell Williams has collaborated with music’s biggest stars – from Miley Cyrus to Mariah Carey, from Jay-Z to Justin Timberlake – while earning a reputation as a hit-making mystic, his finger fully on the pulse of a fickle music landscape, his instincts helping him stay one step ahead of stale. That he can do it while remaining disarmingly approachable and unfailingly polite is, in its own way, disorienting.

“My parents raised me to be respectful. It’s who I am.”

Southern hospitality aside, scoring an interview with Pharrell was far harder than I’d ever imagined. One minute he’s focused on Rules of the Game, his multidisciplinary stage collaboration with Arsham and choreographer Jonah Bokaer, and the next he’s replacing CeeLo Green as a celebrity coach on The Voice. Blink and he’s collaborating with Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack for the film Despicable Me, or penning that monster hit, Happy, for the sequel. That the stars somehow aligned only supports the prevailing theory that Williams is not one of us. Who says aliens have to come from outer space hellbent on waging war and destroying mankind? Maybe they arrive in flat-brimmed hats, possessing the regal air of an ancient pharaoh and the vitality of a creature defying the onset of middle age. Maybe they come equipped with indefatigable drive and prodigious talent. And maybe, after two years of cancellations, postponements and reboots, they agree to sit down and tell you how it’s all done.

Thank you for this opportunity. Please tell me about your songwriting. Do you have a certain method that works best for you?

I follow something that speaks to me, something that just feels good and puts me in a creative mood. Typically, the beat comes first. As an artist, my job is just to listen to it and let it tell me what should be fed lyrically, where the drums should go, where the melodies should go, how everything fits together. The music sets the framework for the words. The feeling and the emotion directs all creativity. It’s the overarching guide. It’s all by feel.

What is your idea of creativity?

Creativity is a gift in the truest essence. It’s a gift from all that is, all that was and all that ever will be – the creator. So when we create, we’re essentially co-creators.

When you sit down to work on a song, do you sense beforehand that it’s going to be a hit?

No sir, I don’t know when a song is going to be huge, I don’t think you can ever predict or manufacture that sort of outcome. It’s really up to the people to make that decision. They do that by buying the records, streaming the music online, voting on it, generating buzz on social media. Those things are out of my control. The only thing you can do as an artist is be loyal to your creativity, and follow it wherever it takes you. If you’ve poured the very best of you into your work, and you’ve done it in a way that’s new and fresh, then you can walk away from it satisfied with the outcome.

Pharrell Williams performs at Coachella

Your 2003 debut single, Frontin’, features vocals from Jay-Z. Do you enjoy collaborating with other artists?

Collaboration has always been part of my DNA. Most of the songs that I ended up putting out by myself were actually songs that I wrote for other people. And collaboration goes beyond just music. I know you’ve interviewed Daniel Arsham and Jonah Bokaer, and my collaboration with them on Rules of the Game was a new frontier.

Was there a specific point in you career when you realized that you’d become a star?

No, I’ve never approached what I do in that way. I don’t believe you can ever assume that you’ve “made it,” because that’s too much of an arbitrary assumption. And I think that mentality has a limiting effect on your creativity – when you start buying into that mindset, you’ve instantly put a ceiling on what you create and where you can take yourself. That mindset can also chip away at your edge, the thing that drives you to create in the first place. For me, I always looked at it like, “Wow, I get to do it again.”

Chad Hugo is a childhood friend and a big part of your musical past and present. How did the two of you get started writing songs?

We started breaking down Tribe [A Tribe Called Quest] records, and then we started making our own tracks. We were still in high school at the time.

The two of you formed The Neptunes, and you’ve won three Grammys producing music for some amazing artists like Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, and Jay-Z. Tell me a little about your approach.

When we work with an artist, it’s about understanding how to bring out the best in them at that particular point in time – how to draw attention to the gifts that are already there. We don’t give the artist anything, because we didn’t create the artist. The artist is co-created with God and formed by a unique set of life experiences. Our job is to do the things on the periphery that accentuate the artist’s gifts. And if we’re doing our job, we’re providing the frame to fit the artist into, then adding interesting colors and creating the backdrop. The artist is subject matter. We’re just the framers.

The legendary Teddy Riley discovered you. Tell me about that.

We were discovered at a talent show because Teddy Riley had a couple of A&Rs check us out. A&Rs are people who represent music companies, and they are always on the lookout for talent. It was one of those amazing circumstances, and a mysterious chain of events, really – Teddy Riley decides to leave New York City, and of all the places he could have built a recording studio, he decides to build in Virginia Beach, literally a five-minute walk from our high school.

Let’s go back to 2013, which was a pretty good year for you. Happy was a monster hit.

That period, 2012-2013, was a real pivot point for me. I just felt like something was happening around me that I couldn’t explain. I’ve compared it to seeing the wind blow on the trees; you see the leaves move and you know what’s causing them to move. You don’t question whether there’s a wind, even though you can’t see it. You can feel it and you know it. Back then I could feel it. There were all of these things going on in my life, and the song Happy was part of that.

What was the inspiration behind the song?

The inspiration for the song Happy came from the movie Despicable Me 2.  Gru was a character who was often seen as mean, with very dry humor, and definitely on the evil side. I was tasked with how to make a song for him that expressed his elation after meeting this woman. That was a tough thing for me, because Gru was mean and not someone who would fall in love.

You’ve been known to pen hits in minutes. I hear it took some time to come up with Happy.

I worked on song after song, but nothing was really working. I thought every song I wrote for the movie was going to it, because of reasons X-Y-Z, but then it wouldn’t work out and I’d write another, and the same thing would happen. Nothing really worked until I had exhausted all of my ideas from an egotistical standpoint. And then, I finally asked myself how do I make a song about a guy who’s just happy, and nothing can bring him down. That’s when everything clicked.

The video for Happy ran for twenty-four hours.  Twenty-four hours!  That was the genius move that put the song into a different stratosphere.

Basically, I would perform for four minutes at the top of every hour.  Then, after me, someone else would perform, and that would happen fifteen times an hour for twenty-four hours. The intention was to make the video feel as alive as possible, and the video’s imperfections, the funny bloopers and mess-ups, are what give it character. I’m not interested in perfection. It’s boring. Some of my favorite moments are accidental. There’s one where I’m underground. I was turning a corner just as a train was coming in our direction, and it stopped right on cue! It was weird. The universe gave us great moments that day.

In addition to Happy, you killed it with two collaborations that were massive successes – Daft Punk’s Get Lucky and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. Did you sense how big these songs were going to be?

No sir. As an artist, you only have a sense of what feels good to you personally. The commercial success of the song is predicated on how everybody else feels when they hear it. If they feel something strongly enough to say they like it, great. If they feel something enough to say, “I like it and I want to tell somebody else about it,” then that is magical. The vote with the likes, the views, the shares. That’s where all of this comes from. It comes from the idea that people are connecting and sharing the things they feel sentiment about.

Pharrell Williams and Daft Punk

Daft Punk has a unique vibe. What’s it like working with them?

It’s always fun working with the robots. They did Hypnotize on the last N.E.R.D album and we remixed Harder Faster Stronger more than 10 years ago with them. So we always had a great relationship with the robots and all of their crew. There’s always been love there for us.

Your collaboration goes well beyond the recording studio. Tell me about your work with multidisciplinary artist Daniel Arsham.

Daniel is a genius artist across so many disciplines. We’ve worked on projects as varied as recreating the first instrument I ever made music on, the Casio MT-500, to producing the multidisciplinary performance Rules of the Game. Rules was big for me because of the talented people that I worked with on that journey – the amazing Jonah Bokaer, who provided the choreography, and the composer, David Campbell, who is an absolute music industry legend.

Let’s talk about Rules of the Game.  What led you to becoming involved and writing the original score for this amazing stage performance?

Daniel’s work is such a magnet for brilliant, interesting people. I’m lucky to call him friend, and to have worked with him on other projects. With Rules, it was a case of me being persistent, and asking him the fundamental question, “What can we do now?”  Rules was the next step in the evolution. We’d worked together on beautiful objects that didn’t move, like the Casio MT-500, but this was something completely different. This was a new frontier, a brand new medium where movement is not only an additional element, it’s absolutely essential to communicating the point. To be able to come into a project like that, and to work with such talented people, is a privilege.


Daniel Arsham, Pharrell Williams and Jonah Bokaer – The creative geniuses behind the multidisciplinary stage performance, Rules of the Game.

Tell me about the film Hidden Figures. What attracted you to this project?

You have three African-American female protagonists who were scientists, engineers, and mathematicians…technologically advanced. So that blew my mind. It involved NASA, and it involved space, which is a subject that I’ve been obsessed with since childhood. And all of this happened where I’m from – Hampton Roads, Virginia, in the 1960s. So, getting involved with this film was an easy decision to make.

You love fashion, and you have a keen fashion sense.

Fashion is great. I love the way fashion helps people express their individuality – when they take things and make it themselves. So fashion and style go hand-in-hand. It’s indicative of who you are and what you’re feeling. I’ve developed my own look by following my instincts and acting on what I feel connected to at a given point in time. There’s a certain power and excitement that comes into play when and you see people creating their own distinctive style and identity.  But do I love fashion?  I love life. I love the opportunities that I’ve been given, and the support that I’ve been getting, and the reaction that I’ve been getting to the work that produce, those are the things that I love. Those things are irreplaceable. Fashion comes and goes.

I play a lot of tennis. Several years ago you launched the adidas Tennis Collection. The collection’s roots are in the ‘70s Golden Era of tennis – Bjorn Borg, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Chris Evert.

The players back then just had a great swagger, both on and off the court. They were super confident. There was a sexiness that they all carried – the men and women – because they just knew they were killing it. They knew what they were doing and what they were wearing was sick. Next level. We need that. Not that today’s players don’t have that kind of confidence, but the ‘70s was so effervescent and vivid.

Final Question: If you could share a piece of life advice with others, what would that be?

Remember to show appreciation, and to be grateful. You’ve gotta give things to something bigger than you.

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Daniel Arsham – Ground Breaker

Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Daniel Arsham is a busy man.  The multidisciplinary artist is also prolifically multithreaded, his work ranging from his Future Relic series of mini-movies to his Rules of the Game stage collaboration with Pharrell Williams and choreographer Jonah Bokaer, to his ever-expanding universe of installations and exhibits.  His fascination with modern-day objects, specifically with how these objects might be perceived as if unearthed on some future archeological site, has captivated imaginations worldwide.  Arsham reimagines basketballs, cameras, teddy bears, and boom boxes as future relics, collapsing and expanding time by injecting decades of wear, neglect and abuse into familiar items from popular culture.  Nothing is off limits: An eroded American flag, tattered an worn; an eroded DeLorean, in the color of volcanic ash, scarred by the passage of time; Pharrell’s 1980s Casio MT-500 keyboard and drumkit, a fossilized relic of a bygone past.  Arsham explores all of it, playing with conventions of time and space in installations that infuse architecture and archeology with a surreal, paradoxical flavor.  That the items are uniformly white or grey and crumbling is in itself a paradox, given that the the man behind the art is equal parts Average Joe and Andy Warhol.

Daniel Arsham’s Crystal Toys, 2017.

“The further you get from a moment in time, the more closely things connect,” Arsham says, “so, 500 years from now, an iPhone and a phonograph will seem much closer together and relate more.  I try to think about all the objects in the show as if I could forget what they were, what they were used for, and try to imagine approaching them like an archaeologist would.”

While Arsham gets plenty of critical love for his work, he’s also developed some serious street cred.  When your films star actors like James Franco, Juliette Lewis, and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, and you’re designing shoes for adidas, there’s little doubt you’ve transcended the traditional art world and cross-pollinated with pop culture.  Not an easy ask, especially given the art world’s tendency to snub its nose at other mediums.

“Pop culture is in some ways far more egalitarian than the art world,” Arsham says.  “I’m trying to investigate our current moment in time and the big ideas within our civilization.  I’ll do that through as many mediums as I can.”

The artist Daniel Arsham (right) and actor James Franco on set Photo: courtesy James Law

The Miami-raised, New York-based artist graduated from Manhattan’s Cooper Union in 2003.  While the private college at Cooper Square helped fuel Arsham’s inquisitive nature, his fascination with time crystallized when, at the age of 12, Hurricane Andrew destroyed his house and much of the community around him.  The disaster forced him to think about impermanence, the idea that everything is transient, that we are all essentially fossils or artifacts in waiting.

“Seeing architecture in a state of flux and movement, and in a state of decay and rebuilding after the storm, has influenced much of my practice – both in Snarkitecture and in my own work.”

Snarkitecture, a design studio co-founded in 2008 by Arsham and architect Alex Mustonen, reflects the artist’s appetite for interdisciplinary collaboration.  The name is drawn from Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark, a poem describing the ‘impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature.’ The aim of Snarkitecture is to subvert existing materials within a space to find a new and imaginative purpose for that space.

“Snarkitecture fills a personal artistic need. There are some artists out there that can sit in a room and work and not care who ever sees it, but I am not that kind of artist,” Arsham explains. “I want to make work that people can engage with. The work is completed by people engaging with and experiencing it.”

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Interrogating, disrupting, and transcending time is key to Arsham’s mission with 3018. The show’s items, each selected for its tie to a particular era or moment, have been dislodged from the past and projected into an imagined future – the eroded DeLorean from Back to the Future, the ‘60s Ferrari from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a pile of random objects which includes electric guitars, microphones, cell phones, cameras, tires, phones, and more – hallmarks that have become a defining characteristic of his practice.  For Arsham, his sculptures are ‘future artifacts,’ each appearing to be in a state of erosion, with wound-like craters disrupting their pristine facades.  A ball rack of basketballs made out of glinting crystal?  A McDonald’s sign cast in obsidian?  A pyramid of baseballs, each ball formed from a different material (volcanic ash, steel, and glacial rock dust, much of which he orders on eBay)?  It’s all part of Arsham’s authenticity.

Daniel Arsham’s Eroded Delorean, 2018.Photo by Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of Perrotin.

“It’s not a trick,” Arsham says. “Let’s say a camera gets calcified over a thousand years in crystal. It would look just like the one I made, and the materiality will be the same.”

Arsham’s fascination with time is the strand that connects his multidisciplinary art.  His production company, Film the Future, is home to a nine-part series of short films collectively titled Future Relic.  Future Relic 01 was scored by hip-hop producer Swizz Beatz and has costuming by fashion designer Richard Chai.  Future Relic 02 stars actor and director James Franco, who plays the role of a worker who spends his days underground indexing and destroying objects from past society.  Future Relic 03 premiered at the 2015 TriBeCa Film Festival with music by Alexis Georgopoulos​, and stars Juliette Lewis in costuming by Richard Chai.  Other projects include a short film for Hennessy 250, and a short film for Jefferson Hack’s MOVEment series, shot in collaboration with fashion designer Calvin Klein, choreographer Jonah Bokaer, and ballet dancer Julie Kent.

“Working with film is similar to dance in some ways,” Arsham explains, “but film is infinitely more complex because you can watch it over and over again. You can pick things apart.”

The creatives behind Rules of the Game: Pharrell Williams, Daniel Arsham, Jonah Bokaer

Arsham’s collaborative spirit is reflected in a recent project, Rules of the Game, a multidisciplinary production with Pharrell and Bokaer.  Two years in the making, Rules highlights three mediums; art, music, and dance, all of it working and interacting with one another to assault the viewer’s senses.  Painstakingly ambitious, Rules of the Game is loosely based on Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 absurdist play Six Characters in Search of an Author.  It combines Arsham’s explosive visuals and design with Pharrell’s music, and dancers choreographed by Bokaer.  As grueling as it might be to get three distinct creative visions to work cohesively in one production, Rules is another example of Daniel Arsham’s cross-platform domination and resolute fearlessness.

“We worked on this project a very long time, so we had the time to experiment to see what might work and what wouldn’t,” he says.  “We all understood that this project would be a risk, but that’s part of creating art.”

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Arsham’s profile leveled up with his Past, Present, Future adidas collaboration, moving him closer to pop culture icons Usher, Kanye and Swizz Beatz. The first release – a pair of trainers designed to look like they were chipped away at during an archaeological dig – were hugely successful, and coveted by collectors. The shoe features frayed sections, while the rubber sole appears to have been chipped away and left with jagged edges. Its white laces are finished with painted metal tips. The final installment in the series – the adidas Futurecraft 4D, which reveals hidden lettering under black light – generated a flurry of pre-release buzz, the hype culminating with a launch event, scavenger hunt, and the release of Arsham’s Hourglass Part III: Future short film.

The adidas Futurecraft 4D – Designed by Daniel Arsham

“Working with the adidas design team, we went back and forth on a number of iterations, slowly honing and simplifying the design,” Arsham says of the Futurecraft 4D. “My studio made a large contribution in the design of the packaging, socks and gloves as well as the sealing of the actual box.”

Now that the Past, Present, Future series with adidas is complete, will Arsham fill the hole in his busy schedule with some well-deserved R&R?

“I enjoy what I’m doing to much to take a break,” the multidisciplinary artists says with a smile. “I don’t look at what I do as work. Whether it’s sculpture, stage design, film, or footwear, I’m most content when I’m working on the next big thing.”

Good news for the rest of us. And spoken like a man who has no interest in becoming a relic himself.

You grew up in Miami.

I was born in Cleveland but moved to Miami a short time later. Miami was a great place to grow up, because I like to swim in the ocean. And to this day I really like Disney World. I try and do a regular pilgrimage to Disney World.

Who – or what – has had the greatest influence on your work?

Architecture as a general overarching theme is something that I am very interested in. Film has played a big part in my work. In terms of people I have been fortunate to work with many different talents across multiple disciplines. Choreographer Merce Cunningham is someone I worked with when I was very young. He gave me the chance to explore theatre, which is something I hadn’t worked in previously.

How did you meet Merce Cunningham?

Merce had seen an exhibition that I did at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami. This was like right before I left for New York. It was an exhibition of paintings, which is why it came as a complete shock that he would ask me to do a stage design. He got my number from the museum’s director, called and said, “I’m Merce Cunningham, are you familiar with what I do?”

From a practical standpoint, how did the two of you collaborate?

Merce had this very unique way of working. He would separate each portion of a performance into their own respective parts, allowing each person to work independently. He would make his choreography, I would make the set design, an artist would make the costumes, a musician would make the score, but none of us knew what the other was doing. I never knew what the dance was going to look like before the premiere. I could basically do anything I wanted. It was amazing and sort of terrifying at the same time. Also when I first started working with him, I was 24. He was 84.

You’re a multidisciplinary artist. What’s it like to venture into areas where you might not be completely comfortable?

When Merce asked me to work on my first stage design, he kept encouraging me. It was a large scale project, the largest I had done up to that point, but Merce gave me the confidence to pursue it.  A lot of other things I’ve worked on, the creation of the films, working with architecture, all of these things, they seem difficult from the outside – and they are – but often, the things I’ve pursued outside of my own practice are in collaboration with other people. In dance, stage and film, I’ve been able to find people who really know what they’re doing, and they’ve allowed me to make these things.

You mentioned film. Let’s talk about your Future Relic films.

Film for me encompasses all the things I’m interested in – architecture, performance, sculpture, and photography. People kept asking me questions about the work I was making, and that was really the trigger point, so I wrote a treatment for a film titled Future Relic, with nine different parts. The stories are all linked, but it feels like they’re very disconnected. The story jumps around in time and spans about 500 years. Each segment takes place in a different time period. It’s intended to be disorienting, but in the end it will all make sense.

Juliette Lewis – Future Relic 03

I’ve watched the first four. These films have a big-budget feel.

People often think that if an artist is making a film that it’s going to be some sort of art film with no story or very abstract. There are elements of Future Relic that are like that, but there is a story that is closer to a Hollywood style thing.

How difficult is it to create these cinematic vignettes?

It’s definitely a learning experience. Film, more than anything, is the most difficult thing I have ever tried to accomplish. If I show work in a gallery or museum I can easily control everything from the light, the way people enter, and obviously what the work looks like. In film, you have to control everything, every last detail. Everything that you place on the screen means something.  To achieve the mood or emotion that you’re trying to create is far harder than it looks.

Give me an example.

The creating or building of light. Light, in the Future Relic films, is as much of a character as the actual characters themselves. Trying to make light work in that way is far more difficult that it appears. There’s a scene in Future Relic 04 where the characters are in an airplane cockpit. We constructed the entire cockpit, and lighting was placed on the character’s faces to make it appear as if they are moving through clouds. Pulling that off was extremely difficult.

What inspiration did you draw on in order to create the world within Future Relic 01?

The visual language draws from Lawrence of Arabia. The film was shot entirely at dawn, which is the same technique that was used in the 1962 film, which helped us achieve this day-for-night quality. So we shot everything in the day and then the color was adjusted so it appears like moonlight.

Hip-hop artist Swizz Beatz did the score for the film.

This was something that was very outside of his normal way of working, but I think he really made a beautifully subtle piece that was very much in key with what I was looking for.

Future Relic 02 stars A-List actor James Franco. How did you end up working with Mr. Franco?

I’ve been fortunate to develop some great relationships through collaborations with my work. I wrote the entire treatment with a colleague of mine named Timothy Stanley. Most of the actors so far have come through my relationship with Al Moran, who is the co-founder of the OHWOW Gallery in Los Angeles. Al Moran has worked with James many times, so we were introduced. I spoke to James about our project and explained that I felt he was perfect for the role, and it turned out that he was interested. The role is challenging because there’s no dialogue at all. Everything is conveyed by the expressions on his face, and his movement.

Future Relic 03 stars the lovely Juliette Lewis.

I’m friends with her brother, who convinced her to see the film with James. She liked it a lot, and agreed to sign on. Having those connections helps, but there are still challenges that come with putting a film together. Being sensitive of their time was a prime driver; it was much easier to shoot these as vignettes because all the actors and talent are friends and are donating their time. I’m working around their schedules. And having the films made in short bursts is easier than dedicating months to work on it.

Let’s talk about your art. When did you become interested in the concept of being an “archeologist from the future?”

The summer of 2011. I was in Easter Island, which is a very small island in the South Pacific, and I was there making paintings that were later made into a book published by Louis Vuitton. There were also some archeologists working there at the same time.  They were excavating some of these famous statues and found objects left behind by previous archeologists that had excavated the site about 100 yeas ago. Looking at this gave me the idea of collapsing time within those two separate objects—the sculpture from 1,000 years ago and the more contemporary pool of artifacts. When I returned from Easter Island, I started making fictional archeology objects from our present – cameras, phones and things like that – that looked as if they had been reformed with geological material and uncovered at some point in the distant future. The decision was made to use geological materials, like volcanic ash, crystal, to convey this sense of time.

The Future Was Written falls into the categories of sculpture, architecture and performance. Photography courtesy of Daniel Arsham

What does the idea of “fictional archeology” means for you?

When I take a simple object – a Walkman, for example – that we all have, or used to have, and make it look like a fossil or an artifact, this makes us rethink our inscription in time. It challenges the ideas we have we constructed about time. To what extent do we believe, unconsciously, in progress, and linear development? It’s towards these kinds of questions that I want to lead my viewers. In placing them in the future, where the familiar objects of their everyday lives appear to them as though from an ancient moment. I want them to experience what Freud called the Uncanny.

Give me an example of your work that reflects this.

My 3018 exhibition at the Perrotin Gallery in Paris is based on a notion of fictional, archeological objects – objects more or less directly related to music. These are familiar objects presented as though they’ve come from another era, in the past. Although they would normally pass by unnoticed, they take on a new consistency. It’s the idea of the flow of time that is being called into question, because most of the objects I’m using are things that don’t exist in our everyday lives. They are things that are just slightly past, yet they already feel like they are from the past. That bridge in time is important in order to imagine these things as relics.  This archeology is based on a simple principle: Take a familiar object and make it undergo a treatment, and then finish the object so that it appears as something strange, something surprising.

Tell me about your treatment of these objects.

When I started these works, I could have taken a camera and painted it to look old, but something about this kind of alchemy—this shift of material—gives a greater weight to the objects, and gives a kind of truth to them that is more powerful. It was the only way to achieve a true authenticity.

Do you have a favorite material to work with?

Materials are always as important to the concept as the visuals they create. When you look at the car and it’s made of crystal, it isn’t as if I painted it to look degraded. Its material is something we associate with a geological time frame.

3018 has some very recognizable pieces.

Two of the pieces are cars. I always look for multiple entrance points so viewers can recognize them, and these two happen to be props from films: The DeLorean from Back to the Future and the Ferrari from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Pharrell Williams is a friend. How did you meet?

Emmanuelle Perrotin, who represents me in Paris, invited me to dinner at Pharrell’s house a number of years ago. There was a lot of conversation, and at some point he had someone from his team pull up my website. We were in his kitchen at the time.

Daniel Arsham unveils a full body cast of Pharrell for the G I R L exhibition at the Galerie Perrotin

It seems like the two of you hit it off.

Pharrell’s an amazing person on so many levels. I see someone who is engaged in so many disciplines, so there are some direct parallels with what I’ve pursued in my own practice. I would see him at Art Basel in Miami, and I would immediately notice that he wasn’t just content to be there. He was engaged. He would talk to the artists and designers, and not at a superficial level He would intently listen and ask questions, so that he understood what they were doing.

Daniel Arsham unveils a full body cast of Pharrell for the G I R L exhibition at the Galerie Perrotin

What’s the first thing your worked on together?

I asked him to tell me about something that was really important at the beginning of his music career – something that he made music on but didn’t have or use anymore. He then described his first keyboard that had these drum pads on it. I did a bunch of research and found out it that it was a Cassio MT NT500. That became the first piece, a relic of the original machine he made music on, and then I was fortunate enough to bring him into my world to create music for Rules of the Game.

How did you approach the stage design for Rules of the Game?

As an artist, if there are rules, I’m going to figure out how to break them. This project was heavy on the idea of mythology and legend, and so much of my work relates to archeology and history, so I set out to integrate those two things. Having objects shatter and then come back together is a play on the stretching out of time, and doing it with Greek and Roman masks and busts helped to heighten the effect. That’s what I was trying to get to with the scenography.

On Rules, you collaborated with Pharrell and the incomparable Jonah Bokaer. Did you work together, or independently from one another?

Both. With Jonah, I would usually present him with an idea: “There’s going to be thousands of balls, or a giant roll of paper, and I want it to form these giant icebergs on stage.” Then he develops the choreography and he uses the material as a way to motivate movement. The rolling of the balls, the masks, the shattering of these things as content in the work. So I’d throw out an idea and he’d come back and say, “I like these things,” or “Maybe this would work better if we did this.”

Let’s talk Snarkitecture. How did your partnership with Alex Mustonen come about?

Snarkitecture started when I was making pieces in public space that manipulated architecture. In a museum or gallery, I usually have carte blanche but my gestures are temporary. Public space requires a different knowledge base, so I hired Alex to help realize my pieces on a larger scale. We discovered an area closer to architecture than my own practice, so Snarkitecture emerged from that. It ultimately became its own entity with its own language.

Snarkitecture – Light-filled cave

Your latest exhibition, Moonstone, wrestles with concepts of space, exoplanets and time, all of it woven into Japanese gardens.

I was invited to spend some time at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I was allowed into a creative studio whose mission it is to communicate to the public some of the more complex discoveries they make. That could be anything from ice on Mars to exoplanets with multiple moons. So I started to integrate some of the forms I saw there, one of those being these exoplanet moons, which are kind of like invented planets.

You’ve spent some time in Japan. How did this inspire your exhibition?

I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan over the last decade, and this repetitive act of raking the sand has always fascinated me. These gardens are fixed in time, in that they have been generally unchanged for hundreds of years, and yet they are remade every day. As I approached the exhibit from an early conceptual position, I envisioned the moons like some distant solar system or collection of planets, and the sand representing space-time or a ripple in a plane of space.

Japanese architecture has a certain timeless quality to it.

There are many buildings and temples that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. The tea houses or temples look the same now as they did five hundred years ago, and maybe will five hundred years from now.

You recently released a monograph through Rizzoli.

My Rizzoli book reflects on the last 20 years of my work, all the way back to my thesis exhibition at Cooper Union. It’s one of the earliest things I created using architecture as a medium to play with –manipulating and creating a disconcerting, uncanny architecture.

Tell me a little about your Futurecraft collaboration with adidas.

When I approached the design of the Futurecraft sneaker, I was thinking more about the tools and materials that we use within the studio. The outfits we wear and the equipment that is related to the production of artwork. The tonality of the shoe is based on the green color that is used in the branding of the studio. This color is derived from many of the works that I was making, which use crushed, broken glass that becomes green – if you look at the edge of a sheet of glass, and you’re staring across it, you can see this greenish color. This comes from iron impurities in the actual glass, but if you look at the glass straight on it is completely clear.

Daniel Arsham

Final Question: If you had one piece of advice for other artists, what would that be? There are no shortcuts. Following your passion means doing the hard work and seeing your art through to its inevitable conclusion.