Cool Hunting

by Laura Neilson

In 2007, 23-year-old Erik Madigan Heck founded Nomenus Quarterly with the kind of arrogant fervor that only someone at that age could pull off. And perhaps it was that very same aplomb that made the multifaceted art and fashion publication so notoriously successful. Just one glance at the archives' roster of featured artists, designers and contributors, including Dries Van Noten, Helmut Lang, Anne-Valerie Hash, Alec Soth and Elizabeth Peyton, makes clear that Heck isn't letting youth stand in the way of his ambitions.

Bridging the high and low, each new issue of Nomenus comes both as a limited edition format for several thousand dollars and as an online publication (with bonus content), gratis—that's part of its contradictory appeal. The newest and seventh volume offers stunning photographic spreads of fashions by Azzedine Alaïa and Ann Demeulemeester (shot by Heck himself), as well as works by some of the art world's greatest figures, including Lucien Freud and Anselm Kiefer.

>A hard copy of the book is $6,500. If that sounds absurd, it's meant that way. Heck, who sets a different price for each issue will be the first one to say so—even the publication's name has a certain tongue-in-cheek objective. Here he let's us in on his serious nonsense, and how he plans to top himself with number eight.

Where did the name Nomenus come from?
I would walk into my building everyday and see this little sign on the door that said "Nomenus." And I never got it. I thought someone had tagged the door. And then one day, like six months later, I realized that it was just "no menus," and there was no space between it. It had taken me that long to understand it, and I thought it was amazing that such little space made me unable to see its true meaning. I thought that was a pretty big symbol for what I wanted Nomenus to be as a publication or as this "thing." And it worked because 95% of people don't get it. They think it's Latin or something profound. And it's really just "no menus."

What compelled you to start Nomenus?
I started photographing when I was 14. My mother's a painter, my father collects art and they always brought me to museums when I was little. Minneapolis is a really amazing city for art. You have a lot of really great museums, and galleries, and it's very accessible. If you're young and you want to be an artist, it's easier to believe that you can do it. Whereas in New York, everything's so oppressive and seems out of reach at first. It's like no matter where you come from, you always start at ground zero. No one gives a shit about you. So the only way that I could feasibly start to make an impact while being in New York was to really do something different—to create my own area or place to show my own work.

What about other magazines?
Initially when you grow up you say, "I want to shoot for Vogue," or "I want to shoot for Dazed or V," or whatever you're into. But for me, there were very few publications that got it right. I had been looking at magazines that existed in art and fashion and none of them really functioned the way I wanted a publication to function. None of them are really showcasing worthwhile art or fashion—they're just in a weird in-between place. So I wanted to cultivate what my own very specific idea of aesthetics in art and fashion was, and what I felt was being missed or bypassed by the abundance of mainstream pop culture. I wanted to feature the important artists and designers—not necessarily the trendy new kids and I wanted you to see their work, not their faces...

Would you call that arrogant?
It's very arrogant in a way. Anytime you take something into your own hands, it's an arrogant task. But I felt it was necessary to show people an alternative to my very anti-aestheticized generation, you know? Because Nomenus inherently exists in this world that's superficial and really pretentious to begin with, it's in dialogue with these already existing pretensions. So part of me wants to say, let them eat cake. Let people pay the highest price, because you know what, we have the best product out there and it's worth it. And it works. It sells out before it even launches.

How did you first approach the artists you wanted to work with?
In the initial stages we didn't even have an issue, so our first issue we just picked up a phone. We had nothing to show, and we got some pretty influential artists right off the bat like Anne-Valerie Hash in Paris, and Francesco Patriarca in Rome. They were more subversive artists, but they're really influential in their own realms. And that issue ended up being great in terms of just putting it online and seeing the world react. Then we made this book that was really high production, so we were able to take that around for issue two.

The interview continues after the jump.

How has it evolved?
It's continuously grown in terms of the prestige of the people that are in it. Like Anselm Kiefer and the Lucien Freud, but their works have existed for a long time. Most people know Anselm Kiefer for his giant paintings, but no one knows him for his watercolors and his watercolors happen to be very beautiful. So it made sense to bring those back and show them, because it's almost like showing something new. And it's the same with Lucien Freud. Most people know the paintings of these obese men, and they may not have seen the ones that we've shown. So they kind of offer a fresh approach.

What excites you the most about each new issue?
It's really stressful. But my favorite part of the whole process? I like photographing the fashion features. And the ability to work with such a diverse group of people and have them really like what I'm doing. It feels really good.

You seem to really embrace the internet by making Nomenus free online.
You have to. That's the beauty of it. Even if you do subscription service or a site is password-encoded or whatever, someone's gonna find a way around it. It's inevitable. You should want people to see your product. You should be able to be smart enough to figure out other ways to make money from showing it. It's the Robin Hood theory, give it for free.

So this current issue is full access? With the exception of the physicality, everything that the box offers is online?

Actually, the box is just a sample of what's online. Online you get a lot more. The idea of the box is that you get these really amazing prints, but just a small selection. And online it's fully free, with a bigger selection. It's quite the reverse from the way things first existed online.

What are you plotting for volume eight?
I already have volume eight mapped out. I'm trying to get all the members of the Wu-Tang Clan to do a shoot in Staten Island, where they grew up and kind of do this piece about them as cultural shape-shifters. If I think back to my years in middle school and years when I was really changing as a person, they were definitely a huge cultural influence. Even in Excelsior, as a white kid, you liked the Wu-Tang. It didn't matter. And I think no one's taken them out of the hip-hop context and really analyzed them as these guys who massively changed culture. We're gonna try to do that, but make it visually based. I want to show you Shaolin as grimy as it can be.

When will that be out?
Probably early-October.

Do you have any favorite volumes?
Every one feels like it's bigger and better. It's weird because I'm full of contradictions. It's become—in issue seven—what I didn't want it to be in the beginning. The initial intention was to show you these artists that are amazing, but weren't so well known. This last issue was very focused on already famous artists, but showing you things about them that you might not have known. So the next issue is, "How do I top that? How do I top the line-up of some of the most influential contemporary artists and designers?" I think mixing Wu-Tang with Balenciaga and Sugimoto might be a good start...no one's done that yet.