Cool Hunting

Mika Rottenberg
For our final video taking a closer look at this year's Whitney Biennial, we travel to the Harlem studio of video artist Mika Rottenberg. Known for videos depicting women engaging in elaborate systems of production that often harvest their own body, Mika shows us the set of her latest piece (and Biennial installation), "Cheese" and tells us the backstory of making the video. We...

José Parlá
Our video about Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá's work explores the thought and process behind his densely-layered graffiti paintings. Perhaps more than any other artist, José blurs the lines between word and image and graffiti and "fine art." In the video José explains his influences (including his brother Rey Parlá's abstract scratch films) and at his Fort Greene studio we get the rare privilege of...

Social Suicide
Pairing impeccable tailoring with biting irreverence, the London-based label Social Suicide is reinventing men's fashion, one suit at a time. Using the classic male get-up as a canvas—including all its allusions to money, power and war—every piece in their line has its own story about masculinity and modern culture. By collaborating with Joe Morgan and Roy Chittleborough, the same tailors that realized the creativity of legendary British designer Tommy Nutter, Social Suicide is as committed to extending the tradition of British suit-making as it is to upending it. When CH first came across Social Suicide's wicked sartorial humor earlier this year, it was love at first sight. In episode 54, CH visits Matt Grey (aka Tig) and Simon Waterfall, the two longtime mates behind the nearly year-old brand, at their schoolhouse bell tower-turned-studio in East London to get an exclusive tour of their collection. From the gray "Shark" suit with subtle rose pink gils to Simon and Tig's comedic and brotherly rapport, CH's latest video installment is an intimate look at an exceedingly clever and totally genuine young label.

Okamoto Studio
Takeo Okamoto, an established sushi chef in his native Japan discovered his calling for ice sculpture and moved to the iciest place he could think of, Alaska. Winner of several international awards, including a Silver Medal in the 1998 Olympics, Takeo now runs Okamoto Studio with his son Shintaro in New York City. We were introduced to them through Jeremy Mangan, an artist whose coffee paintings we admired. When we spoke with Jeremy he mentioned that he also sculpts ice—he's in fact Okamoto's principal carver—the result of Jeremy and Shintaro having met in an art class at Hunter College. We decided right away to make a video of the studio and, after some deliberation, we realized CH mascots Otis and Logan would make the perfect subjects for a video and a great feature at our 50th Episode party. Guests were treated to the breathtaking sculptures of the Sealyham Terriers themselves and to raw footage from the video of them being made.

Brian Dewan
In this, our 50th episode, we visit the Catskill, NY studio of artist Brian Dewan. His sculptures are pre-digital, unpredictable electronic musical instruments. Dewanatron, as he calls the genre, is a family of instruments which hazard unpredictable behaviors and self playing tendencies. They make all previous and future instruments obsolete. We also bring you to Pierogi Gallery where we first learned about Dewan.