Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/730395
contributors 56 culturedmag.com PHOTOS BY WYATT GALLERY (THOMAS); PATRICIA NEAL (COTSIFAS) HANK WILLIS THOMAS is coming off the success of his summer show at New York's Jack Shainman Gallery, "For Freedoms," a politically inspired collaboration and Super PAC with Eric Gottesman. A visual artist, photographer and arts educator, his work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery and Atlanta's High Museum, among many others, and is in the collections of the Brooklyn and Whitney museums. He is also currently a DuBois Institute Fellow at Harvard University. For our cover story, "An Anxious Man," he photographed artist Rashid Johnson (above) at work in his Brooklyn studio. For this issue, Contributing Editor MICHAEL SLENSKE got a rare invite to visit the home studio of the anonymous Bay Area artist known as Alphachanneling, whose erotic works on paper have earned him nearly 290,000 Instagram followers. "You don't normally get that Eyes Wide Shut feeling on a stoop outside an East Bay apartment, but there was a palpable charge in the air as I waited for Alpha to arrive," says Slenske, who went through thousands of drawings in the artist's work space last spring. When he returned to L.A., Slenske visited the studios of five female artists setting the art world on fire. "Whether or not this is truly the 'Year of the Woman' is a much debated topic, but it's clear that many women— especially these artists—will be setting the pace for years to come." SOPHIE HASTINGS is a freelance journalist specializing in the international contemporary art scene. She has been a contributing editor at British GQ for the last decade and has been published by The Financial Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Tatler and Sotheby's magazine. This month, Hastings is curating a contemporary art exhibition for the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour for Focus/16, part of the London Design Festival. For Cultured, she traveled to Domaine du Muy, a sprawling sculpture park in the South of France, for her story, "Call of the Wild." ANTHONY COTSIFAS is a native New Yorker who studied at the Pratt Institute and became a professional photographer in 1991. Cotsifas' love of beautiful design, graphic lines and striking compositions has been a driving influence on his work, which can be seen in magazines such as The New York Times Style Magazine, W, Vogue, V magazine, Big and Exit. He is currently working on a book of his personal work. In "Mixed Use," he captured art dealer Shulamit Nazarian in her Venice Beach gallery.