Female Trouble

February 07, 2019

No one said making it as a creative in New York was easy. Because it’s definitely not. It takes years of being broke AF while hustling to keep creating—and one of the only respites along the way is finding your people and keeping them close. Photographer Natalia Mantini and stylist/costume designer Miyako Bellizzi have lived the struggle firsthand, but their friendship has kept them both inspired and sane over the years they’ve known each other.

The California natives met in the city and have been collaborating basically ever since. “We have a lot of similarities both in how we were raised, what we care about and our feelings about what we make,” Mantini told office, “[Bellizzi’s] become someone I go to for a clear perspective about my work.” With similar influences—like Chicano culture and the Bay Area—and complementary styles, their connection informs and validates the work they make together and on their own

Interview by Louise Delaney
Photos by Natalia Mantini
Creative Direction by Lyndsea LaMarr
Styling by Miyako Bellizzi & Lyndsea LaMarr

“Natalia brings out the drama in me,” said Miyako. “I love shooting with her because we can do whatever we want and just have fun.”

While Bellizzi has spent the past few years styling films like Good Time and music videos for artists like Jay-Z, Mantini has been shooting everyone from J.Lo to Barbie Ferreira. But no matter the subject—from high profile celebrities to Downtown cool kids—their vision never strays.

Peep their latest shoot exclusively for office, and read our interview with the best friends and collaborators, below.

What was the inspiration behind this shoot from each of your perspectives, as model and photographer?

Natalia Mantini: My inspiration was to have fun and not answer to anyone but ourselves about what we were making. I was feeling John Waters and aerobics videos mostly. I didn't want anything to feel constrained, and we are rarely serious when making things together. We take our work and influences very seriously, but we don't want any restrictions or outside trends to interfere. I prefer to be dancing and laughing the whole time. I wanted her to wear whatever she wanted to feel powerful and have fun. ‘Freak what you feel’ is often my inspiration when working with Miyako.

Miyako Bellizzi: It all started with a conversation about Natalia getting a new camera and how she wanted to shoot portraits of me with it. I was excited because I love medium format, and since she has taken portraits of me in the past, I thought it would be fun to do something a little different with this shoot—something fun and dramatic.

How would you each describe the work you’re making right now?

Natalia Mantini: I'm focused on making work that is influenced by subcultures and communities that shaped me, my love and admiration for cinematography, my ancestry.

Miyako Bellizzi: I've been doing more cinema which involves me thinking about individual characters that reflect a mood or tone, rather than an overall theme for shoots. So, when I work on shoots, I implement that same idea.

How do your styles interact with one another?

Natalia Mantini: Miyako and I are both heavily influenced by punk, goth, new wave, Chicano culture and the Bay Area. There are a lot of similarities that we grew up around, even though I was in Los Angeles and she was in Oakland. We have a lot of parallels in what we were drawn to as kids—whether it's music, party scenes or film directors. We have an inclination towards the freakier side of things, and grew up idolizing similar iconic women. I think our styles just naturally mesh well and tap into what we both love about each other's culture and purity. I think we often validate each other’s' style with appreciation.

Miyako Bellizzi: Natalia brings out the drama in me. We have the most fun together when we shoot. I love shooting with her because we can do whatever we want and just have fun with it. We play off one another's style and photo influences to create images that reflect us.

Who are some of your artistic influences?

Natalia Mantini: Lately I've been influenced by a lot of contemporary artists and musicians—Monica Garza, Mario Ayala, Cheyenne Julien, Jennifer Packer, Rhylli Ogiura from Krimewatch; the foto archive Veteranas and Rucas is huge for me; I love Wong Kar-wai. To get myself to a grounded place of figuring out what and why I'm making something, I like to listen to and read pieces by Penny Rimbaud. I am lucky enough to have some friends who work in film and am influenced and inspired by their process.

Miyako Bellizzi: Living in NYC is a constant inspiration for me. I take inspiration from everything I see—I'm inspired by real people mostly living their everyday lives. Friends who create art who inspire me are Emma Kohlmann, Heather Benjamin, Tamara Santibañez and Sonya Sombreuil. I love photography and some of my favorites are Mary Ellen Mark, Brassaï, Daidō Moriyama, Shōmei Tōmatsu, Robert Frank to name a few. I'm influenced by film, and directors I love stylistically are Wong Kar-wai, Godard, John Waters and my buds Josh and Benny Safdie.

What’s your collaborative process like?

Natalia Mantini: It's fluid and fun—it feels like we're kids playing. We conceptualize everything together and feed off of one another's energy. I think we value each other's opinion.

Miyako Bellizzi: I'd say it was a mutual meeting of the minds that we built together by taking inspiration from ideas we both wanted to showcase. It became a melting idea from different eras, different styles and genres that we like to create something different from what we've seen before.

How does your friendship positively contribute to the work you create together?

Natalia Mantini: It makes it enjoyable and gives me a feeling of making something with a sibling. There's a sense of freedom and presence to what we're doing.

Miyako Bellizzi: We are a very good team because we enjoy and take references from similar ideas. We are first close friends, and creating images for fun and the drama of it is just another day in our life. It's amazing. We can bounce ideas off each other and laugh throughout the entire process. I think it shows in the images we create.

What’s one way you’ve seen each other evolve as artists over the time you’ve known each other?

Natalia Mantini: Miyako has and continues to blow me away. I feel like her stage-mom. She has one of the most obviously pure and innovative ways of executing her style and I'm so happy it's being recognized in the way she deserves. I think what really hit me was when I went to see Good Time in theaters and saw her name on the opening credits. I started crying—I may have cried for an hour. I saw it twice in theaters. I could feel that the film had her touch in every scene, making it beautifully authentic. I couldn't be more impressed by her vision and the fact that she has built this all on her own.

Miyako Bellizzi: The last four to five years have been a rollercoaster for both Natalia and I in terms of highs and lows. We've lived together, we've worked together and have been on this journey together. I think about the times we were broke and had nowhere to publish our work—we'd still do shoots with the little money we had and figure out a way to publish our own magazine, Crave, with content that we wanted to share. I've seen her develop as a photographer and really find her niche over the last few years. I am so proud of Natalia and all of the beautiful women she's been able to photograph. She seems to only be getting better with age and I love seeing her process. Her passion to stay creative and inspired drives me to keep going. I'd say that's what friends are for: to push each other to be the best we can be. I feel that connection with her and it's really special.

What are your zodiac signs?

Natalia Mantini: I'm a Scorpio which some say you can tell by looking at me. I don't let it dictate my day-to-day, but I do like to connect with my astrologer friends to see what's going on with the moon.

Miyako Bellizzi: I’m very much a VIRGO.

What are your favorite New York spots to escape the chaos?

Natalia Mantini: Metrograph, Brooklyn Museum, Woodstock, NY and Dia: Beacon.

Miyako Bellizzi: The New York Buddhist Church, The Great Jones Spa, the beach and anywhere upstate.

What’s your dream collab?

Natalia Mantini: I need to shoot Sade.

Miyako Bellizzi: Wong Kar-wai and Björk.

What are you watching right now?

Natalia Mantini: I don't watch TV shows, except for true crime docuseries.

Miyako Bellizzi: Sex in the City—again.

Who are your style icons?

Natalia Mantini: My ancestors, Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale and Selena.

Miyako Bellizzi: My mother, Cher, Debi Mazar and Björk.

See more from Natalia and Miyako here and here.

Art

LIA by Iga Drobisz

Your work often explores intimacy and vulnerability. How do you create a safe and authentic environment for your subjects during a shoot?

The past few months, I’ve been working on two series of photographs: nudes of women in their own apartments and portraits of women before and after giving birth. Both series involve capturing them in deeply personal spaces—bedrooms or nurseries—where they feel at ease.

Shooting in their spaces, in their own beds, plays a crucial role in creating comfort. I choose film and cameras that show them in a way they find beautiful and empowering, emphasizing softness and warmth. It's a stark contrast to modern, hyper-detailed phone cameras that sometimes reveal more than one wants to see.

Your photography has a distinct emotional depth and texture. How do you approach the interplay of light, color, and composition to achieve this?

My process is highly intuitive. I’ve never formally studied photography or apprenticed under anyone—I learned by experimenting and seeing what felt right. It’s about trusting my instincts rather than adhering to rigid rules.

What role do personal experiences or cultural influences play in shaping the stories you tell through your images? Many of your photographs feel deeply narrative.

Growing up, I was surrounded by great cinematography. My grandmother had a TV, but my mom only brought home VHS tapes—films with substance. I think that exposure shaped how I see the world, how I approach subjects, and the narrative depth in my work.

What role does spontaneity play in your shoots? Do you leave room for improvisation, or is everything carefully planned?

To balance spontaneity and structure, I go in with a clear plan and strong direction, but I remain open to surprises. It’s about letting the subject feel like the shoot is about them, not me. That openness often leads to the most unexpected, meaningful moments.

What inspired the shoot with singer Lia? How did it come together?

Collaborating with Ruby and Naomi always takes me out of my comfort zone in the best way. For this shoot, we wanted to transform someone with an iconic face but also someone like Lia—someone with a clear sense of self.

Giving her a completely new look was exciting; it brought an unexpected energy to the set. The approach was playful and experimental. The night before, I had no idea what wigs Ruby would bring or what colors Naomi might choose. It was a beautiful mix of spontaneity and collaboration.

What inspires you the most?

Movies and music are big inspirations for me, as well as the work of other photographers like Carlijn Jacobs, Harley Weir, Rineke Dijkstra, Charlotte Wales, and Nan Goldin.

What emotions or truths are the hardest for you to express through your art, and why?

I don’t think I consciously try to express specific emotions when I work. Instead, I follow what feels right in the moment—what draws me in or excites me that day. It’s less about a deliberate expression and more about letting intuition guide the way.

Art

Luna Luna: Surrealist Spectacle Lands in New York

November 21, 2024

In the 1980s, André Heller, an Austrian artist, singer-songwriter, and former actor, was looking for a new place to showcase his art. He had already taken to gardens, creating a colorful, surrealistic character using 40,000 flowers, and to the skies, organizing a 'fire theatre,' which involved an over-the-top fireworks show complete with steel-frame sculptures set on fire. But he had never tried out a fair.

So began "Luna Luna." Created as the world's first art carnival, "Luna Luna" combined the spectacular with the absurd, showcasing original rides and attractions from rising and already-at-the-top artists in Hamburg. Nearly forty years since its debut, followed by foiled plans for a worldwide tour, breached contracts, and 44 storage containers, the art fair has finally returned, calling New York home after re-debuting last year in Los Angeles.

By Hailey Johnson
Photography by Delvin Claro and Sabrina Sarnitz, courtesy of Luna Luna LLC

On a recent evening in Hudson Yards, a small carousel featured characters in quirky, Twister-like poses and an outstretched dog with seven legs. (Almost a century old, the rides are no longer rideable.) Goofy wooden sculptures were elevated in another corner, some of them cross-eyed or with a horn for a nose. A geodesic dome glowed, with Gregorian chants hovering somewhere above it.

"It's an art experience like no other," Michael Goldberg, Chief Experience Officer of Luna Luna, said recently. "People get to see artists do things they've never done before," he added.

Goldberg, founder of Something Special Studios, a creative agency behind many Nike campaigns, was determined to resurrect “Luna Luna” after reading about it online in 2019. Goldberg shopped for investors, eventually teaming up with DreamCrew, a media company co-owned by the rapper Drake. (Details on the company's investment remain vague; sources have reported that DreamCrew spent over "100 million dollars.") In 2022, an intensive restoration process began, with a team of artists reviving many of the original works, which had remained in boxes in a Texas warehouse for over thirty years. Several had been in pieces. (The team reportedly had to rebuild each work "bolt by bolt.")

That night, at the Shed, fourteen out of the original thirty-five works were on display, including the small carousel (Keith Haring), the goofy sculptures (Kenny Scharf), the neon dome (Salvador Dali), and a towering Ferris wheel decorated in drawings of stick figures, upside crowns, and references to Jim Crow (Basquiat). Missing works are in a "constant state of restoration," Goldberg said. Meanwhile, new attractions are joining the line-up. For the New York show, the Puerto Rican duo Poncilí Creación was commissioned to create "PonciliLand," a blink-and-you-miss-it section where guests "can create fantastical characters out of custom building blocks." Poncili also developed floating characters, inspired by performers who circulated the original “Luna Luna” fairgrounds in 1987. Known as "Lovers," the two characters, large and dreamlike, teetered to one side, mumbling the kind of nervous groans one does before a fall. (They never ended up falling.)

I asked Goldberg if, given that today's culture doesn't quite look or feel the same way as it did in 1987, there was any hesitation in showing some of the original works. On a back wall, a tribute featured Manfred Diex's "Palace of the Wind," a show featuring performers who fart into a microphone; on another, two ornate pedestals held sculptures of spiral poop.

"I don't see any reason why we wouldn't show any of these works," he said. "A lot of the time, art is exclusive and uninviting. The big difference between “Luna Luna” and other art experiences is that it has many sides to it, and things that have a bit of humor and playful energy. "As for "Palace of the Winds,” the decision to keep it was simple: farting is universal. He went on: "The “Crap Chancellery" is, conceptually, one of the most important works in “Luna Luna.” Daniel Spoerri's dad was killed in the Holocaust, and the work was inspired by Albert Speer, who was Hitler's architect. He took the facade of what was meant to be a Nazi shrine and turned it into the facade of a bathroom with two steaming statues of shit standing on the outside. These works are extremely important and are things that we would definitely want to honor and draw attention to."

As “Luna Luna” further develops, the show will likely change. "It will continue to evolve as we go to different cities in response to the spaces that we pop up into and in collaboration with the local city," Goldberg said." With it, there will be new characters and new stories to tell. One aspect that won't change, though, as Goldberg assured, is a long-held sentiment about a potential partnership. At one point, early on during the original “Luna Luna” era, McDonald's wanted to buy into it. Heller said no, adding that he "didn't want it to feel like Disneyland." Goldberg agreed. Nonetheless, as I watched Kenny Scharf's dizzying swing ride go around for what felt like the hundredth time, with the cartoon characters decorated on it blurring together (one with a villain's grin, another morphed into a martini glass), I couldn't help but feel like maybe I was at Disneyland, only not as robbed, but just as entertained and exhausted by its rides and fantastical characters, and wanting to go again.

Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.