Donald Cumming reaches for a pack of American Spirits—the blue kind—and feeds a cigarette into his mouth. It briefly rests on his lower lip, casual and unlit, in a way that suggests he’s been smoking for the better part of two decades, running around the streets as a New York City teen and getting into his fair share of trouble. Born and raised in Lower Manhattan, Cumming, the previous frontman of now-defunct band The Virgins, has witnessed firsthand the evolution of Manhattan and he, in turn, has evolved along with it. We’re still inside when he lights up, smoke floating from his toothy grin and between the walls of a Brooklyn loft—a reminder of Cumming’s formative pre-Giuliani youth. “We can smoke in here,” he says, less by way of permission than simply stating the obvious.

It started with YouTube. Two years ago, Alessia Cara, still a Canadian high school student with a shy streak, sat down in front of her bed, the camera of her iPhone trained on her. Hair tumbling and teeth white, Cara belted out the lyrics of Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather,” grounding the track with a preternatural soulfulness. Cara had been uploading similar videos—covers of everyone from Amy Winehouse to Justin Timberlake—but in “Sweater Weather” she stretched against the seams of the song, her own voice bigger than the room that held her. The video was on its way to clearing a million views when a production studio reached out and pulled Cara into the world, the ink on her high school diploma barely even dry. 

Most young actors would be content with fortune and fame, only a select few aspire to go beyond the trappings of labels like star on the rise or the next big thing. As they burst onto screen with the velocity of a supernova, the biggest challenge facing them is not to fade quickly. You know the type, they come from all over; the silent loner, the bad boy, the brooding intellectual... all possessing that ever elusive “it” factor. An uncanny combination of looks, luck, charm, and if not always intellect then definitely a self-serving savvy that mere mortals like you and me could only dream of. It’s no secret that we idolize these men and women, it’s no secret that we want to fuck, marry or kill them, an entire industry is based around it and boy do they make a killing. The latest unknown about to become well-known is Bronx-born, Oregon-raised, Karl Glusman. Having recently done the cinematic dance with a French provocateur, a disaster flick guru and an indie cult demigod, Glusman is poised to propel himself from complete obscurity to Hollywood’s A-list. His first offering is the wildly anticipated Love by Gaspar Noé. A film that boasts full frontal, lots of sex, and a 3D money shot. It’s a story as only the French can tell it. 

DJ Assault made a name for himself in Detroit pioneering what is now known as ghettotech or booty music, a genre characterized by hurried, syncopated beats that he laced with downright nasty lyrics. The tracks are so outrageously dirty—if you’d care for a sample, try his all-time greatest hit Ass-n-Titties—that they seem to have captivated as much for their hyper, dance-oriented sound as for their near farcical levels of raunch. But as he grew from a star in his local scene to a recognized artist nationwide and abroad, Assault quickly became wary of what he saw as an inherently predatory music industry, eschewing label deals, collaborations, and anything else that might distract from his work and detract from his business. While he stops short of calling himself a cynic, he sees music, and frankly culture in general, as declining steadily towards an ugly end.

In the meantime, it’s every man for himself. 

From the thoughtful stargazer to the raving evangelist, mankind’s search for the answers to life’s greatest puzzles tends to point us all in the same direction—up. The incomprehensible nature of the skies has been a source of wonder since the dawn of human consciousness, inspiring scores of scientists, believers and lost souls to study and speculate on all that could possibly exist beyond the bounds of our planet.

Peter Beste’s photography often shines a light on groups toward the fringes of society; for past projects he’s embedded himself in the cliquish music scenes of London grime, Norwegian black metal and Houston rap. For his latest endeavor, he’s ventured into the American Southwest to meet those individuals—some predictably kooky, some surprisingly insightful—that have embarked on a quest for answers regarding extraterrestrial life, paranormal events, and the implications of such notions. His work has already uncovered fascinating characters and curious phenomena, and promises to help us better comprehend our eternal obsession with the limitless realm of outer space. 

Tired of New York and the strictures of working as a commercial director, Matt Lambert moved to Berlin and pursued art. Drawn in by the fluidity and cross-pollination of the city’s social scenes, he began to incorporate those around him into his work as he built an oeuvre in film and photography. Keim, his newly released book of photographs, documents the intimate relationships of male youth in the German capital. The images are daringly graphic, but they are not intended to exploit, nor merely to provoke.

The work presents sex, specifically sex amongst young men, with frankness and levity, and in doing so serves as something of an antidote to the way we’ve been culturally programmed to perceive the topic. Lambert invites us—those of us who aren’t clutching pearls and crying pornography—to observe a series of private moments in the lives of individuals with shifting sexual identities, constituents of a community redefining what it means to be in a relationship in the modern age. 

In 2009 I stopped by the Reena Spaulings Fine Art booth at Frieze in London, and one of the directors I knew asked if I could man booth while they went to use the restroom.

I checked my posture, placed my hands together behind my back and smiled. I hadn’t had a chance to look around, so I skimmed the walls as if I was scanning magazine pages, spending only seconds on each image. I didn’t want to give away the fact that I didn’t know much about what I was supposed to be selling, even if it was only for the few minutes before my makeshift ended. Someone approached, observed the work, and asked if the artist was a member of the electroclash group Chicks on Speed. “This chick is clearly not on speed,” I replied. “She’s on E!”