Parisian arts collective Each x Other in collaboration with Mannerheim Gallery created a series of posters and T-Shirts for us in celebration of our September Issue: Oh La La Land

ALIZÉ MEURISSE. “girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (we swirl around in the night and we are devoured by the fire)” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

ANN GRIM. “Truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

DAVID WEST. “The spectacle is the common language of seperation”(2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

FRANÇOIS MANGEOL. “Vous êtes ici” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

Stephan Brüggeman x Liquid Architecture. “On and On” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

ROBERT MONTGOMERY. “Flaunt your life in La la land” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

RUIZ STEPHINSON. “We are all one” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

THOMAS LÉLU. “TRAVAIL” (2016). Classic glossy paper, 170 g. 42 x 59.4 centimeters. Courtesy the artist and Mannerheim Gallery, Paris.

Parisian arts collective Each x Other in collaboration with Mannerheim Gallery created a series of posters and T-Shirts for us in celebration of our September Issue: Oh La La Land

The Oh La La Land Exhibition Opens this Saturday 5-8 PM at Mannerheim Gallery, Paris

Paris-based art and fashion collective Each x Other is, in a sense, a microcosm of exactly that which our fictional utopia Oh La La Land seeks to achieve. Birthed by Jenny Mannerheim, founder of Paris-based Mannerheim Gallery and fashion design protégé Ilan Delouis back in 2012, they were inspired by a perceived need in the zeitgeist for connectivity and community, as espoused in the anti-capitalist ethos of French philosopher Guy Debord. Each x Other has in its relatively short life, pushed a radical alternative agenda all of its own, one that seeks to re-energize fashion both as a platform for artistic discourse and as a potential new form of poetic intervention.

The clothing of Each x Other is oftentimes laced with lyrical anti-establishment sentiment born from a love of the infamous French Situationist Movement that Debord founded, and particularly its seminal text The Society of The Spectacle (1967). While the collective boasts collaborations with artists from all over the world, not only is it born of revolutionary French philosophical musings, but the pair at its helm actually met in Paris, and showed their first collection during Paris Fashion Week.

It’s via a shared love of unfettered cultural intervention that Flaunt and these pre-eminent fashion provocateurs of Paris have come together to create a series of Oh La La Land interventions designed to inspire. “Each x Other is one of those fashion houses where we do our collections for retail, but we also propose ourselves as this form of new media,” says Mannerheim, when we meet at a café nestled deep into The Marais, where Mannerheim Gallery is located.

“The brand name comes from the two last words of a text-based artwork by [collective member and former Flaunt cover artist] Robert Montgomery that reads: ‘THE CITY IS WILDER THAN YOU THINK AND KINDER THAN YOU THINK. IT IS A VALLEY AND YOU ARE A HORSE IN IT. IT IS A HOUSE AND YOU ARE A CHILD IN IT. SAFE AND WARM HERE IN THE FIRE OF EACH OTHER.’” Mannerheim explains, “These words create an image that is both nostalgic and forward thinking; traditional and modern. It’s a reflection of modern society’s paradox, and we have used the poem in print or patched on most of our clothes, like a hymn or a prayer.” Much like the work of Montgomery, the Each x Other brand is based on a duality of sorts, created with an eye to engage would-be digital consumers in a dialogue that ponders the phenomenology of existence in the contemporary consumer paradigm via exposure to groundbreaking art and sentiment. “Fashion today has really evolved into a place where artists showcase their works to get visibility. It is serving a purpose that they would seek before through other forms, such as through the publication of a catalogue,” says Mannerheim. “I think an artist might more easily be proposed to do a capsule for a fashion brand now, than to get a publisher to commit to printing a book.”

It’s a salient point in a flagging print market, and the sense of communication over style per se is a key through-line in all the works of the artists who have created our exclusive Flaunt x Each x Other line of t-shirts and sloganeering posters, all of which will premiere at Paris Fashion Week and exhibit at both in Mannerheim Gallery and in Los Angeles during L.A. Art Fair before going on to retail. And it’s precisely a dialogue between the two cities that the works explore. Both exhibitions are curated by Ruiz Stephinson. “The artists that we invited to be part of the Oh La La Land project are all artists that are, or have been, working on ideas from The Situationist Movement and Guy Debord’s texts,” says Mannerheim of the project. “We briefed the artists about the project based on the name Oh La La Land, and asked them to explore ideas of the confluence of culture between Paris and Los Angeles. These two cities have a very natural connection, of course, through the arts, as they are both iconic destinations for artists, writers, and movie directors. Most of the artists we asked picked up very directly on the idea of The Spectacle, and considered the name Oh La La Land as a sort of Debordian land: halfway Paris, halfway Los Angeles.”

There is a sense in the collection of a perfect confluence between the new-world grandiosity of L.A.—arguably the natural home of The Spectacle—and the more considered traditional birthplace of fashion and sophistication that is Paris. “Paris and L.A. both have a dark romantic side that inspires artists,” says Mannerheim. “I think every artist or gallerist in Paris is still idealizing the American Dream, with Los Angeles and Hollywood being at the epicenter of the concept of success. A lot of what was said by Debord is now true,” she continues. “All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. The Society of The Spectacle, to me is an amazing ode to humanity itself, as it describes the development of modern society and its concurrent degradation of human life. I’m inspired by The Situationist Movement every day to keep to keep true to myself, and not get totally numb by the capitalistic and individualist influences in our society. In the introduction to The Society of The Spectacle there is a quote by the German philosopher Feuerbach that reflects well upon the era we live in: ‘But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence... truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred.”