Lodown Magazine Issue 123 - Vehiculum

Highlights of our fifth VEHICULUM issue include…

PAUL WHITE… In this day and age, where everything and everyone is expected to be a disposable commodity, life is about performance only and not necessarily about permanence. It’s a shallow world ruled by limited shelf-life and the false hope of being obsolescent-immune. And the highly-detailed drawings of Australian artist Paul White capture the phased-out goods of that very process.

THE KRAGE LEGACY… Did you know that West-Berlin felt like the worldwide capital of Speed Boat racing in the 70s and 80s? Hans Georg Krage co-founded the MCR in 1973, and organized races on the upper and lower Havel river for the next two decades. His son Peer opened his impressive photo archive for this impressive (and speeding) trip down memory lane.

BODY KIDS… Photographer Bernardo Aviles Busch came across the Tokyo-based Lowrider scene rather accidentally. Luckily, he carried his trusted camera with him and captured the spectacle on the streets of late night Shibuya.

NEW YORK CHRONICLES … Brooklyn-based photographer Luc Kordas has managed to become an expert of dichotomy over the years. On the one hand he’s the creative mind behind the popular “You Live Only Twice“ travel blog, on the other hand he’s known as a street photographer who’s capturing the ever-bustling inner city life of NY.

- plus more visual stimulations and awesomeness from the likes of: Craig Steck III, Chris Labrooy, Kenton/Davey, Karl Hab, Ant Farm Collective, Tom Sachs, Jason Rhoades and many others.

- WHY Ebay... Every once in a while you get introduced to the work of an emerging artist that immediately makes you reflect on why you fell in love with graffiti, graphic design, fashion and getting inked in the first place. It is as if you suddenly got invited to observe things from an edge, wondering when and why you suddenly stopped to rethink - or think ahead - the many possibilities these mediums offer while admiring the audacity, presumed playful easiness and variety of ideas on display. And one of these artists goes by the capricious name of Why Ebay.

- Richard Kern... There are quite a few protagonists that portrayed the seedy underground of NYC in the 80s, and East Village-based Richard Kern certainly is one of the most prominent ones. As a filmmaker he was one of the driving forces behind the Cinema of Transgression, for which he explored hysteria, sex, drugs and violence through the punk rock lens - topics he committed to for a large part of his professional career as a photographer as well.

- Cali Thornhill Dewitt... Creating subversions of the American flag. Being a roadie for grunge royalty. Running a publishing house. Doing radio. Preparing for solo-exhibitions worldwide. Running a record label. Actually, the creative endeavors of celebrated artist Cali Thornhill DeWitt are too numerous to list, but it’s safe to state that the collaboration with Abloh and Kanye a few years back might have been the moment that catapulted his name into the mainstream consciousness once and for all.

- plus more elaborate features and visual awesomeness from the likes of: Marta Blue, Mark Mulroney, Clamm, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Icy & Sot, Dry Cleaning, Matt Hansel, Mike Osborne, Djinn and many others.