Sarah Hoover, Director at Gagosian; The Interview

Sarah Hoover, a director at Gagosian since 2007 - one of the world’s most influential contemporary art galleries, is an art dealer, based in New York City. With a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humour you can’t help but fall for Hoover’s genius portrayal of her own life though her fabulously unfiltered Instagram account @sarahhoov. As she navigates the world with her son Guy + husband Tom Sachs, Hoover is a force to be reckoned with. Defying any roles society works hard to box us into as women, her strong + empowered storytelling conveys a sense of the badass woman she is, one that’s intellectually interested + interesting, hilarious + with just the right amount of self-deprecating humour she brings it all together in her breathtaking + impossibly beautiful collection of outfits + Chanel filled wardrobe.

Here she chats style philosophy, social media + daily routines..

HSF - What does a day in the life of Sarah Hoover look like?

SH - Different now than pre pandemic! I like to work out first thing, then shower + take time getting ready. Spend an hour or so hanging out with my son in the morning before he goes to school, then do correspondence + zoom calls + get them out of the way before lunch. I need a big chunk of time in the afternoons to write—three hours or so, half of which I waste procrastinating + suffering from extreme imposter syndrome, half of which I actually accomplish things. And then I like to hang out with my son between his dinner + bed time. He’s my favorite person. At night I have dinner with my husband most nights, + our best couple friends about half the time. I reserve at least one night a week for girlfriends—I’d reserve them all for girlfriends if I could!

HSF - It’s safe to say your style is a D R E A M. What is your perfect outfit? Like what makes you feel your best?

SH - I feel my best in short skirts + dresses because I like when my legs feel free! I hate being overly hot + as you may know I am an extreme overheater which I love to talk about constantly. It’s pretty sexy.

HSF - On the note of personal style, you’re the Queen of “when art + fashion collides” what is your style philosophy / how do you build out your wardrobe?

SH - My style philosophy is that trends don’t matter + you should wear things that make you feel comfortable + happy. I’ve always loved pastels + sparkles + matching looks. I indulge it! At night I love to feel sexy + wear all black, lots of leather + fitted looks, and I indulge that too. I’m not sure either vibe is “on trend” but I don’t really care.

HSF - Where do you find yourself most inspired? And by whom?

SH - When I’m reading really good fiction + really good poetry. Specifically Sylvia Plath, TS Elliot, Hemingway. I also love to see museum shows of beautiful + radical art.

HSF - To what do you attribute your success thus far?

SH - So much luck + good fortune that I don’t deserve. But also, trying to treat everyone with grace + kindness + going above and beyond with every task.

HSF - What upcoming exhibitions or emerging artists are currently catching your attention in terms of art?

SH - Adriana Varejao at Gagosian West 21st street will be beautiful!

HSF - And in fashion?

SH - Christopher John Rogers + his use of color. Rodarte + how they follow their imagination + inspirations.

HSF - Favourite established designer?

SH - Chanel

HSF - And someone more emerging?

SH - Markarian + Prabal Gurung

HSF - You’re one of the coolest people to follow on Instagram as a Mum, style icon + career lady. Your sharp sense of humour + incredibly articulate + smart manner defies the fatigued + repetitive nature of so many accounts these days. How do you switch off though? Do you find the pull of social media + always being turned on a challenge? Where do you find balance in doing it all?

SH - I definitely find the pull of social media to be hard to resist! But I think being mindful of doing things that bring true joy + inspiration, not things that are just rote habit, is super important—so if I’m just looking at social media + absorbing it but not creating content + creating thought expression that is fulfilling for me, that’s when it’s time to lock my phone away.

HSF - Do you have a morning + evening routine? Anything that you do every day without fail?

SH - I write in my journal first thing when I wake up. Sometimes it’s for five minutes, sometimes it’s for thirty, but I try to do it first thing every day. And I’m really into oral hygiene.

HSF - What was the last book you enjoyed?

SH - The Margot Affair and Stephanie Danler’s memoir, Stray, which is beyond beautiful writing

HSF - And film / TV show?

SH - I love Succession + can’t wait for it to come back. 

HSF - What are some of your unfulfilled ambitions?

SH - I want to write + publish lots more, both academic + fiction

HSF - And lastly Sarah, what’s next for you?

SH - I wrote a book last year that I hope will be published in 2022!

Follow Sarah via Instagram // @sarahhoov

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Who Is.. Cindy Sherman

Cynthia Morris Sherman was born in New Jersey on January 19, 1954 and is one of the contemporary art world’s most influential and consequential living female photographers. More widely known as Cindy Sherman, her career as an artist has spanned nearly 40 years and throughout she has exclusively created photographic self-portraits that explore, with a strong streak of feminist  messages, the construction of modern day life, drawing on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes. Socially critical and amusing, her work is never far from the truth; mirroring the realities of our time with a sustained and precise fabrication that forces the viewer to take a deep breath in personal recognition or perhaps a wider, more general appreciation of it’s greater meaning.

Sherman is an interesting and interested character. Upon graduating from the State University of New York in 1976 she moved away from painting and began what would become her life’s work beginning with Complete Untitled Film Stills (1977-1978) which would remain one of her most seminal series and consisted of 69 black-and-white images. In the 1980’s she moved on to colour film and larger more mammoth productions focusing slightly more on the use of lighting and facial expression. She has since, at different times, focused on directing motion film between her famous photographic series. But her photography remains her most celebrated and revered work. 

In every series of creations, Sherman works as her own subject while capturing herself in an endless range of pretences and guises. In the creation of one or any of her photographs, she is everything all at once, from makeup-artist and hair-stylist to creative stylist, creative director and of course, photographer. All of this means she stands alone in the industry, in which she is typically grouped within the era of the Pictures Generation, through her distinctive mix of performance and photography. Drawing upon film, fashion and a lot of influential and commercial advertisements, she ironically plays into with the cultural stereotypes that are massively supported and encouraged by such media portals and draws upon her belief that we must challenge them with a sense of sharpness and dark humour. In her processes, she uses wigs, prosthetics accessories, liberal amounts of makeup and set designs that all enable her visions to come to life. 

Sherman has been the subject of many major museum exhibitions, most recently at MoMA in 2019 and again at the National Portrait Gallery, in London which also showed this year. She lives in New York City where she also works in solitary in her Manhattan studio. 

Who Is.. KAWS

KAWS, the subversive artist considered one of the most relevant artists of his generation has found himself as one of the industries most talked about creators in recent times. Something of a worldwide phenomenon, and a noted disruptor in an industry that typically has rules expected to be obeyed, he stands somewhere between the high-brow world of fine art and the very real temptations of international commerce as he plays to his own directives, sidetracking all the industries traditional hierarchies. His creations are exhibited in museums and galleries from New York to Tokyo and literally everywhere in between. 

Born in Jersey City, NJ as Brian Donnelly in 1974, the distinguished artist spent his teenage years graffiti-bombing trains, buildings, phone booths, advertisements and billboards around his neighbourhood. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. It was before college though that his career began when he moved to New York City in 1996 and started by changing the images found on bus shelters, phone booths and billboards, tagging them with his signature KAWS. His graffiti tags garnered huge popularity and become progressively desired by the public. After graduating in 1996 he worked for a time at Disney as a freeman animator where he was part of the team that painted backgrounds that contributed to movies such as 101 Dalmations and Daria. 

Taking inspiration from art history and popular culture he has become famous most notably for his larger-than-life sculptures and their amazingly clever placement in a variety of different settings around the world, all of which have come together so successfully with added thanks to the power of social media and the influence of younger generations instrumental mastery of the ‘gram’. Possessing a sophisticated humour along with his incredible ability to deconstruct iconic characters he represents a whole new era in contemporary art and a luxury market that worships the pop in popular. 

His work influences a multitude of industries while he uses a myriad of mediums including painting, printmaking, sculpture, fashion, toy production and merchandise to reach his fixated audiences. Over the past two decades, his paintings and cartoon characters have garnered a cult following, including major collectors and celebrities such as Kayne West and Travis Scott - something the art world can’t ignore despite those at the top of the pecking order’s desperate attempt to dismiss his career as empty and his famed creations illogical. Engaging audiences far beyond the museums and collectors homes though he reaches us via his continuing collaboration with major brands such as Comme des Garcons, Original Fake, Dior, Supreme, A Bathing Ape, Uniqlo, Hennessy, Undercover, Kung Faux, Nike and Vans. In 2018 KAWS pieces generated a total of $33.8 million at auction and the average for each piece doubled from the previous year, proof of his pull when it comes to the devoted nature of those investing in art as a global market. 

Larger than life, in real life he works and lives in Brooklyn, New York where The Brooklyn Museum will open a major retrospective in 2021. His first Middle East museum show, KAWS: He Eats Alone, recently opened at Doha Fire Station (Qatar Museums) and will run until January 2020. 

Who Is.. Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons is a renowned American contemporary artist best known for his transformations of everyday objects such as puppies and inflatable plastic toys to vacuum cleaners and delicate trinkets, turning them into fantastical, larger than life masterpieces, including, most iconically, balloon animals in vibrant, garish colours, produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces.

Born in York, Pennsylvania, on January 21, 1955, the celebrated artist is something of a living legend. After finishing high school he attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. During his time in Maryland, a school trip to the Whitney Museum in New York to see a Jim Nutt exhibition would prove a major turning point as he was so infatuated with the Chicago artist’s work that he up and left Maryland, leaving to enroll at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the very establishment that would afford him an honorary doctorate some 30 years later. 

Swiftly making a beeline for New York in 1977, Koons took a job at MoMA in an administrative role. His presence was always noticed due to his brightly coloured and outlandish attire and hair, sometimes he would adorn himself with an inflatable plastic flower and large brash bow-ties - the first signs of his now infamous sculptures. In 1980, he jumped ship and got a job working on Wall Street, selling mutual funds and stocks at First Investors Corporation. This job was a strategic move however as it allowed the young artist fund his creations which would eventually appear in his first solo show, The New series (1980–83) in which he had vacuum cleaners and shampoo polishers displayed in clear Plexigas vitrines.

In the years since his first solo show in 1980 his work has been shown at all the world’s major museums and galleries, in cities around the world, from Berlin to Sydney, New York to Los Angeles, London and Paris, Oslo, Venice, Zurich, Shanghai and beyond. His most recognisable pieces are of course his larger-than-life balloon animals but beyond his Neo-kitsch materialisations is his artistic love of a variety of other art forms including human sculptures and paintings, all born of his eclectic portrayal of his misunderstood vision. 

Astute and media-savvy, the self-proclaimed crowd-pleaser is not one to shy away from applause or acclaim. In 2014, the self-assured and extrovert artist posed naked in his gym for a major Vanity Fair profile, shot by Annie Leibovitz, which was published to welcome one of the most crucial points in his career, a retrospective of his entire body of work shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. This is one of many solo exhibitions the artist has enjoyed internationally. Not only is his work enjoyed by millions, the world over, he has influenced many other artists over the past few decades, most notably perhaps, Damien Hirst, another of the 21st century’s most prolific contemporaries. Of his hero’s work, Hirst has said “The first time I saw his work, in the late 1980s, it just blew me away”.

Commanding a team of over 100 in his New York City studio, in the Chelsea neighbourhood, Jeff Koons continues to test the boundaries between high-brow art and the pull of mass culture, not to mention the potential as an artist found in the mass market following he has cultivated. In his long standing career to date, he has created something very unique: the combining of the art world and celebrity, his status as both artist and celebrity firmly rooted in our innate interest in both his art and him as a person. Koons has noted that there are no hidden meanings in his art and he leaves the world deeply divided, some think his work is innovative and holds a major place in art-history, while others feel it is vacuous, tacky and full of self-importance, some even referring to him as the “king of kitsch”. However despite the critical divide, Koons continues to have the last laugh - as do those who invest in his work; he is the most lucrative living artist, his famous Rabbit fetched the highest price ever for a piece by a living artist in May 2019, selling for $91 million. The epitome of Neo-Pop, investing in a Jeff Koons is definitely worth the hype whether you’re after high art or something more culturally popular. 

Who Is.. Yayoi Kusama

You may already be aware of and completely in awe of Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist, who despite many personal difficulties is one of the most revered contemporary artists alive. Born on March 22nd 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama was born into an affluent merchant family where her artist tendencies and creative disposition were completely unaccepted by her family. She began drawing and painting at a very early age and determined as she was, Kusama never steered off her path as a born-to-be artist. Enraged by her daughters most undesirable behaviours, something the family believed brought endless shame upon them, her mother would intentionally rip up her creations, leaving the young artist even more determined and purposeful. It was about this time that she admits to her hallucinations beginning. Involving vast expanses of open space, filled with polka dots, these imaginative delusions would prove to become the matter of her most iconic pieces and haunt her for the entirety of her life. 

Despite much unrest and turmoil at home, she somehow persuaded her parents to allow her attend art school to study as a painter. It was at the Kyōto City Specialist School of Arts that she attained a not-so-influencial and brief training. Amid immense family conflict which very much hindered her yearning to work as an artist, she moved to New York city in 1957. Before immigrating, she destroyed much of her early work. 

New York was her ticket to freedom, something she’d craved since childhood. There her obsessive repetition flourished and she began what she called her “infinity net” paintings - large canvases consisting of millions of tiny dots that she never let the edge of the canvas limit, their presence a reflection of the limitlessness of infinity. This early work was her contribution to the emerging Minimalist movement however her transition into performance art meant she was seen as a leader of the Pop art group soon after, a movement well-known of that time. She found herself at the centre of the city’s avant-garde scene and around this time her creations were beginning to gain major recognition, exhibited alongside some of the era’s most notable artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

At the height of the 60’s in New York, her work mirrored the issues of the time, especially her performance pieces which saw her touch on politic themes and society-induced limitations around homosexuality and the rights of women. She sought to be a voice for those who were silenced by the time’s controlling constraints. Her performance pieces were hugely successful, despite the many controversies surrounding them, what with her overindulgent use of nudity in public. Her public performances saw her arrested several times, yet these dangers never dampened desire to convey sensitive themes and her longing to help those she felt needed a platform from which they could be acknowledged and heard. 

Her work has been shown in endless exhibitions around the world and is part of the permanent collections at the LACMA, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, MOMA in New York among many others. In 2014 and 2016 she was regarded as the most expensive artist. She has acquired world acclaim, both from those deeply imbedded in the the art world and those who, simply embarking upon a must-do visit to MOMA while in New York, tend to fall for her madly beautiful masterpieces. 

Kusama never married, and amid the endless rumours that surrounded her and many of the artists she worked with during her time in New York, she only ever admitted to her relationship with Joseph Cornell, the legendary artist who, 25 years her senior, was an obsessively controlling figure in her life. The union was non-sexual though, in fact they never had sex and were simply bound by a pure love for almost a decade. 

After Cornell’s death in 1977, her mental health deteriorated rapidly and she permanently relocated to her home country where she voluntarily checked herself into a psychiatric hospital; she resides there to this very day. She has remained an outsider to her peers ever since and, despite a certain self-consciousness, she keeps it that way. Her studio is across the road from the hospital where she works on new works, all while fighting the hallucinations and mental illness that have plagued her her entire life. Known as the ‘princess of polka dots’, the celebrated artist has known many hardships in her life. Turning her demons into something beautiful, her life is a story of survival and endurance and her art some of the most sought after pieces of her generation. Known for her mirror rooms, polka dots, mushrooms, pumpkins and at one time the repeated drawing of penises, her compulsion to repeat patterns is her way of dealing with her demons. Yet thanks to this unwavering desire to create, her desire to die has always been outweighed.

Javier Martin, The Interview

Javier Martin, a multi-disciplinary contemporary artist, is on a mission to break boundaries and have us question, as a society, who we are and what we believe in. Politically and ethically charged, his deeper meaning approach to art and each of his collections to date was born of a life-long devotion to his passion which has seen him grow from is first exhibition at the tender age of eight back in Spain where he grew up, to showing at galleries an museums around the world. As a true artist, his limitless attitude sees him continuously evolve on his personal journey, which he allows be defined by one thing only: the message he wishes to bring to life. 

Javier has been working on his current collection 'Blindness' for a collective 10 years. It is here he tests the limits we place on ourselves in terms of defining beauty and what is has come to mean in a world that tolerates nothing less than perfect. Here we speak to Javier about his discovery of art, the importance of expression and his devotion to eliciting a more curious culture that seeks answers instead of following conventional standards. 

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Javier, tell us a little about your journey into the art world...

I began painting in oil colors when I was seven years old, and my first show was for the CAJA Madrid Young Artist Award at nine. I have always worked in a creative way because art is my passion.

At what point did your passion, that clearly started so young, turn to something you were making a living from?

I never made a conscious decision to become a professional artist. Everything progressed in a very natural way. I have always lived for my art, and one day you wake up and realize this has turned into a career. This did not happen overnight though; I have been making art for over 20 years. For me, art is something that lives inside of you. Art is my whole life.

Your current collection, 'Blindness’ is captivating not only for it’s beauty but it’s deeper meaning.. can you share what this collection is about?

For ten years, I have analyzed society’s actions, explored superficial perceptions of what is beautiful and valuable, and questioned the theory of genuine beauty and truth. I transform and deconstruct this idea of manufactured perfection used in advertising to explore the warped notions of beauty and value. In my work, I always conceal the eyes. Eliminating one’s most compelling and expressive tool to me is representative of how society’s triviality blinds us and takes us further from what is truly important.

Do you feel being untrained - in the traditional sense of having studied art at college - has allowed you express yourself more freely as an adult artist, and in fact allowed you to remain uninhibited and limitless as the writer of your own story?

I do. I don’t subscribe to one specific style or medium. My focus is on communicating a message. My first contact with art was when I was seven and began painting in oil colors. In that class, my instructor gave me the freedom to experiment. I never painted to recreate an image like the rest of the students but painted what I saw in my mind or my emotions. From the moment I discovered art.

That was my only formal art training, as I did not have the opportunity to study art as I began working at a young age and I now apply the skills I’ve acquired to creating art. Travelling, visiting museums, meeting people around the world was my education. And still is. I believe art is synonymous with freedom. Art isn't above anyone or anything. That's the beautiful thing about art because it allows people to see things from different perspectives.

 As an artist, how do you bridge the gap between the freedom of creativity and the restraints of consumerism?

I don’t feel those restraints on my freedom of creativity. I focus on making what I want and, if anything, consumerism is a source of inspiration for me. I base my art on my observations of society, what I create invites the viewer to think critically and reflect on the issues I believe are especially prevalent. Everything from consumerism, immigration, war, the game of politics and everything in between. I don’t criticize anything but merely put two realities together, and people can form their own opinion. Art has a purpose and should not just be beautiful. As an artist, I have responsibilities. I have the mission to say something meaningful.

 ‘Lies and Light’, one of your performance art pieces was revived with high regard, take us through the process of bringing such a performance together..

For many years I have been attracted to the idea of fully immersing myself into my work, creating something where I am completely present. With performance art it's interesting because it's art created at that moment and then it disappears forever, only the people present with you at that time get to keep a piece of the art. It’s something incredibly intimate and changed how I approach my work.

When I had the opportunity to do something like this, I decided to take all of my personal experiences and battles and transform them into a performance, connecting them to my Blindness concept and my work with lights. I felt very vulnerable when performing the piece, but I also a strange sense of power and release.

Can you tell us about your studio and take us through your creative processes there?

I look at my studio as my temple. Sometimes, I will just go there and walk around, clean things, move things around as if in a trance. Other times I will go with a clear idea and work until it’s complete. But usually, I am working on multiple projects.

Do you ever struggle with creative blocks?

I usually don’t because my mind is continually working and thinking. I have a book where I keep all of my ideas. Typically when I have an idea in my mind, I take out my book and write it all down. The problem is the battle of when I have the energy and the time to make the idea a reality.

Where do you find yourself most inspired? And by whom?

Every moment I live and experience is essential, but it’s interesting because I am often the inspired when I am by myself either immersed in nature or lost in my studio amongst my materials. It’s in those moments that I don’t have anything to distract me, I can reflect, and regain my balance. I grew up in Marbella next to Malaga the city where Picasso was born. He was one of the first artists I connected with when I was very young. Another artist who inspires me is Maurizio Cattelan as his art carries strong messages meant to revolutionize society. But everyday people and our culture inspire me the most because it’s the basis for so much of my work.

 To what do you attribute your success thus far?

Three words. Consistency, time, and passion. Over the years, I have never lost focus, passion or my ideas. No one is going to fight for you or pave the way for you. You need to find your truth because that’s the only weapon you have to fight. I believe and trust in myself.

What exhibitions are currently catching your attention in terms of contemporary art?

The Michelangelo Pistoletto’s retrospective at Blenheim Palace.
Ai Weiwei’s latest city-wide public art installation ‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’ with Public Art Fund.
Daniel Arsham’s first solo show in Russia ‘Architecture in Motion’, at the VDNH's "Karelia" Pavilion.

What is it that you want people to take from your work?

I want people to take a minute and just think. We often do not not wish to see our reality and are blinded by so many different things within our society, there is nothing more dangerous than to lose the window to your interior and only focus on the superficial. Self-reflect and find who we truly are inside and what we really want from this life.

 How does your art play a part in social change do you think and in essence pave the way forward for greater expression and less insecurity?

My focus is always on sending a message, the important thing for me is to make people think and reflect on where we are now as a society. I love the idea of changing the standards of beauty. I believe we still have a lot of work to do before we start to embrace everyone, not for their similarities but for their differences. I hope that the message in my art can help at least one person discover their light and the freedom that comes with it. As an artist I have responsibilities, I believe through my art I can change the world.

There a recurring thread of personal philosophy to each of your creations..

Yes, I want to express something powerful and meaningful because art has purpose and power, so it should not just be beautiful.
However, we live in a very superficial world, so I often use beautiful things to draw people in, because if it's disturbing, people tend to look the other way. My Blindness Collection is an example of this. At the end of the idea, we are all the same and dealing with many of the same challenges. Everyone possesses their own unique beauty. But what's most important is who a person is, what they think, feel, and believe.

What has been your greatest challenge to date and how have you dealt with it?

Fighting all of my life to become an artist and to be free from this system laid out by society. But believing in myself, listening to my interior and having a clear vision of the path laid out in front of me has really helped. No one is going to fight for you or pave the way for you. You need to find your truth because that is the only weapon you have to fight. I believe and trust in myself, I pick myself up every time I fall, and I always continue on my path. That is the only way to keep a dream alive.

And your proudest moment?

Seeing myself and my work in a museum for the first time. Earlier this year, I presented a video art of my first performance piece 'Lies and Light' in the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville. Interacting with the people of that city and realizing that what I do as an artist has power, through my art I can affect change and accomplish my goals. I continue to learn about myself every day and the things I am capable of doing.

If you had one more hour in your day how would you spend it?

I would spend it creating and making art.

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