Peep some of our favorite photos from the book, below.
Photos by Julia Fox, Michael Krim, Sean Maung and Adam Jason Cohen; courtesy of PAPER WORK.
"Last Dance" book release is March 1st @ 110 Winston Street Los Angeles, CA. 90013. Head to PAPER WORK for more information.
Andrew Richardson's brand is essentially Vogue on viagra, a platform for the photo assistant seeking sex, but also streetwear and Steven Klein.
So with the current fashion week is full of brand collaborations— Richardson reaches for a fitting way to follow suit and seeks the muse of many— Pornhub.
Proof is in the porn party— recipe for revival: fashion's finest gets lit in a gallery, and add full-frontal. Celebrating their capsule collection with cash in the air, Asa Akira, just asses all over— Pornhub and Richardson, provide this next year.
What radicalized you?
Honestly I’ll give this credit to my mother. The evangelic Christian culture I grew up in, I think is the source of that radicalization. I attended a working class church, kind of weird in Texas. One third working class black families, another one tired white families, and one third was Hispanic families, some of which didn’t even speak English very well. So it was a very broad spectrum of working class people, that are struggling to get by, [who] yearned for their salvation. That is a radical idea— [and] any liberations struggle. I think that was step one: growing up in a conservative culture where workers are not treated fairly, and being poor… But right off the bat, you can figure out the objective of the United States government since it began. The beautiful people and cultures that were destroyed. Victimizing humans in an act of tremendous terrorism. If learning something like that doesn’t radicalize you, I just really don’t know...
People were really shocked to hear you voting for Trump. I mean we’ve talked about this before but... in your words can you explain accelerationism & are you a accelerationist?
...Alright, so I really thought the decision out… At first of all we were presented with a farce, the election of a fraud... The democratic party decided that, and they decided upon someone that everyone in America fucking hates. So what role are they really playing in that electoral process, what’s happening here, I don’t think we have all the answers… We weren’t given a real option, let’s be honest with ourselves...
Working in an industry that directly relies on capitalism to catalyze sales and acknowledgement as “art” or “work” do you find yourself torn?
We’re all torn! [But] we’re not given another option...I’m constantly testing the limits of what’s “acceptable”. We can see where the border of permissible thought is. You can’t blame people for being caught in the culture… The American government has been able to inflate a very prosperous, utopian, bouncy-house, consumer economy for people, through some very vicious foreign policy decisions. But they can’t afford to do that anymore. The crimes we have commit around the planet are catching up with us, and that’s the moment we are marinating in right now. ...One practical thing that should be an obvious answer for everyone across the political spectrum [is] brand spankin’ new Constitution. Written by the American people. Not white men with property. Not people with money. Not Goldman Sachs, not any fucking politician.
Would you be allowed to post things you have strong opinions about or is that problematic to the art that you make?
...When I’m dealing with industry people I am a brand… But I don’t like capitalism and I don’t like that— that is the way we think. Of course, there are a lot of other ways to think of yourself, like as a person… Nevertheless, being political is part of who I am as a person. I think we all should be. Because listen the thing is. I have love. I have love for other people. (begins crying) ...I have so much love for the planet too, and we’re doing so much to fuck it up… I’m so emotional about this because I desperately need people to wake up. There will be a lot of pain. Society needs change, your consumption level needs addressing, these are realities that need to happen to save the planet.
So earlier you started to tell me about some recent backlash to your previous interview and the fact that you voted for Trump. Do you want to share a specific story with me?
Shit! So I’m not sure should I share this? ...I’m going to share it. So, a person I hooked up with, only once… this guy had all these expectations about how the world and politics work, that I don’t think are accurate. It’s difficult to convey to someone that they’re wrong. Even if you’re on the same side and acknowledge there is a problem, it hard to stay focused on the right problem together when the government is trying to keep us from evening looking at that problem...he ended up reacting in some pretty negative and childish ways… It became really abusive. But I know I’m committed to this cause… The government has always been very keen to break apart leftish groups, it’s nothing new. We need to stay focused on working together, everyone needs to be involved even if you don’t politically mesh, because guess what? We are all human beings.
...Rule number one: question everything your government tells you and rule number two: demand evidence… The last thing Obama did before leaving office was sign the defensive authorization act. Which includes a department of propaganda, that propaganda is being used against us right now, you better believe. What is the propaganda, why can’t we have freedom to make decisions on how we wish to be governed? Trump really, at the end of it all, is to create THIS right here. Where the tension and contractions that live in the United States, and within us, come to the surface and we unpack this mess. We cannot prolong this moment any longer, we don’t have time. At least think of your family members, have some love for them. Think of yourself, you’re a human being, do you care about yourself? Think about those loved ones with kids, or kids already displaced due to climate, think of anybody, any animal, any plant, anything and fucking fight for it.
This year is almost over, which is nuts, but what are your goals currently?
Ha! To try to fucking chill out. I need to work real hard at that. I need like lots of desert alone time, and caves to hide inside. I need lots of music… My passion project recently ended, Colby Does America, and I’ve had such a beautiful year living with my partner in Arizona. I am loving my current experiences having alone time, camping a great deal, enjoying some of my amazing spots. It’s helped my sanity dearly… Although you brought up climate depression being a actual diagnoses now, and I think I face that heavily. It’s so hard to watch us as a species destroy ourselves. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take care of the earth and encourage each other to… I’m really eager to get back actually because, unsure if climate related necessarily but one of my favorite spots ever recently experienced a crazy flash flood that wiped out everything I’ve been told. If my two favorite hammock trees are ripped form the earth I will be incredibly upset. But relaxing in my favorite domain helps my climate depression most definitely and I’m happy with my current lifestyle.
As a “brand” can your brand evolve? Could you bring light to these controversial topics?
No. And this is why; it’s a very difficult situation to be in- particularly as a porn star… I mean, I am doing this interview, people are getting angry on twitter. Which I think should be happening much more to be honest.
So like that’s a step in the right direction. Well I think you’re a sensible person to gain knowledge from, I mean, you know what you’re talking about, growing up with a hobby in history, working in the nation’s capital.
Yeah but because of my connection to this other world; the art, porn, collaborations industry it is hard but I do think of this, in my political speech, as an art performance in a way. I’m testing the boundaries of what’s permissible in society… I think we should be very skeptical of people who accept anything that’s being presented by the democratic party. Let us at least acknowledge that Trump has caused the republic party to go rogue basically... like what are they even doing? Does anyone know! They never expecting to deal with any of these problems because Hillary was supposed to be president. But that didn’t happen and now we can just acknowledge that the current system is most definitely NOT helping us. ...We need to be thinking about all this in ways that are uncomfortable. It’s not fun. Being in nature is the best therapy. I honestly think the greatest thing we could do as a strategy to try and reform the way we function as a society is to recognize the spiritual importance of cultural sites and give them back to the people they belong to. It’s a good way in general to just think about the spiritual component of what we’re doing and what we need to be doing. Capitalism robs people of the freest things on earth, which is earth itself. We need to protect earth and all the humans on it.
“So these photos are about sex,” she gestures to her dual photographs, one of a woman in the act of sex, her back tattooed with large clef notes, and one in the aftermath, lying on the other side of the bed, curled away from her partner.
“It’s about the expectation before you have it. So the first picture is out of focus, it’s a burst of color and then the second photo…” she thinks for a moment.
“You know those memes? Where the girlfriend is needy and doesn’t want the boyfriend to leave? Well, I always want the person to leave.”
The room erupts. Someone yells “I love your honesty!” and the laughter continues.
The woman in the photographs is Fox. She is the first to admit how comfortable she is naked, particularly in front of a camera. Circa December 2015, Fox was approached about posing for Playboy’s "last" nude issue. One of the photos from the shoot, that occasionally makes an appearance on Playboy’s Instagram account, extenuates Fox’s dark hair offset by her bright blue eyes. None of her tattoos are visible nor does she resemble the woman self-documented on her Instagram account which has been deleted by censoring trolls, four times.
Fox didn’t always like to be photographed. She was raised in Yorkville in the 90’s, a neighborhood on the Upper East Side that has since been gentrified. The iconic film, “Kids” portrays growing up Yorkville during that decade.
“When I was growing up it was a shit hole, no man’s land,” Fox reflects. “Everyone was bad, all the kids were bad, I guess I was bad too. One thing I used to do is get drugs from the projects and then sell it at a much higher price to the rich kids. I hated being photographed because I didn't think I was pretty nor did I care about fashion.”
By the time she was in high school, Fox no longer lived in Yorkville, but with her best friend, Briana and Briana’s mother, on the Lower East Side. Here, the opportunities were endless. At 18, Fox became a dominatrix to support herself. She briefly pursued a college degree before dropping out to start a fashion line with Briana called Franziska Fox. In her prime, Fox was introduced to a Playboy photographer who thought she would be perfect for what would become a heritage issue.
“I wanted to get in there because it’s an instant classic. We even did the shoot at my house because they wanted to make it more personal. The piece referred to me as ‘model, fashion designer, powerhouse.’ I was like, really?!”
But in May 2016, riding out her December Playboy fame, Fox was publically, physically assaulted by her ex-boyfriend. In response, she packed up and left Manhattan.
For six months, Fox orbited rural Louisiana. She was drawn to New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, where she hung out in trap houses similar to those she frequented growing up in Yorkville. She turned the camera away from herself during those months and instead, took explicit photographs which inspired her first art show, “PTSD” about the harsh realities of the Deep South.
Since that experience, Fox has identified with and practiced art as a photographer. Her recent solo show, “RIP Julia Fox”, was inspired by her near death experience at seventeen when she overdosed. Friends and strangers flocked to the gallery to celebrate the life and death of Fox who stood by, in bright purple lipstick.
Matt Sukkar, has been photographing Julia for a long time.
“I met Julia several years ago. A friend of mine pulled up to my house in Julia’s red Mercedes Benz convertible. She drove like a maniac. I didn’t see her again for a year until she came to a party I was throwing in LA. I took a photograph of her and our artistic relationship was born. We took a couple road trips after that to Tijuana and through the South, and I’d be able to shoot her with anyone we found because she can become fast friends with anyone. I think this ability to connect with people is because she has a lot of emotion in her. She is unapologetic about her life experience and I think that naturally allows for great portrait photography.”
In the photographs Fox contributed to the “SECRET GARDEN” show, you can’t see her eyes. During sex, she is turned away from the camera and post, her eyes are closed in restful repose or maybe, as an act of self-protection.
It is unclear if Fox sees her body as precious and sacred or rather as a precious vessel. It has served her as a dominatrix, commanded the pages of Playboy, garnered attention on Instagram, and been the focal point of her most recent art. She hates censorship and reveals her way of combatting it is by being more provocative.
At “RIP Julia Fox”, a few small collages hung behind the table at the gallery’s entrance. One, “Death As A Fetish” is comprised of women’s portraits, surrounding an image of a naked and dismembered woman’s body, that were all taken by a serial murderer-rapist who posed as a photographer to lure victims to their death. The portraits, ironically, serve as the “last photo taken of the victim alive”.
It is possible Fox sees herself in these women, even if it means breathing a sigh of relief for the amount of times she has gotten in front of a camera and come back stronger.
