SURFACES ARE FOR SLIPPING UP: Made In USA / Bernadette Corporation

 

MADE IN USA, MADE IN GERMANY, MADE IN JAPAN, MADE IN CHINA, MADE IN POLAND. Bernadette Corporation: three people in New York City (today, 1999, or 2000) working together on a new fashion magazine called “Made In USA” and making art. We came from different backgrounds, but we had something in common: we wanted to change the world because we didn't like the way it was. Now, we are more mellow and interested in turning our backs on the world, exploring new, wild spaces and telling the world what we found,how great it is, how you can do anything out there… "It's a very American mentality," said Daniel Boone the explorer. But we call our magazine “Made In USA” because it is the title of the worst movie Jean Luc Godard ever made (also a very good movie).

Name : Bernadette Corporation. Current Number of Members : 3. Founded in 1994. SONY CORPORATION, DISNEY CORPORATION, TIME WARNER CORPORATION, BEATRICE CORPORATION, BERNADETTE CORPORATION. We call ourselves a corporation because corporations are everywhere, and it impresses people … pretending we are business people while we sleep all day like cats. Our work is like the one street lamp out of 100 that flickers on and off. How did we manage this? We started a fashion magazine yesterday.

We have always liked fashion for what it is--a seductive surface. Fashion magazines in general like to tell people, “this is cool, this is new, look at this.” New fashion magazines try to launch a new wave of cool. They are very fast. We are slow, slowing things down and getting lost in them. We are stuck on simple questions, like “What is a fashion magazine?” “What do they do everyday at Vogue?” When we think of a Fall Collection, we think of leaves on trees turning orange and red, of pumpkins and apples. When we think of fashion we think of an atom smasher the size of Texas, and the option of wearing smashed atoms to school, the office, a date, etc.

New York City is changing. It used to be such a fast city. Older people always tell us how exciting it was. Everyone was running around, looking at new things, the cultural center of artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, always doing things, always ready to become famous overnight. This is the myth of New York, of Frank Sinatra and Andy Warhol. Today, because New York is more expensive and people are running around making lots of money, the center has been sucked up, like a black hole in outer space. Bernadette Corporation has gone through that hole and landed in another universe. We can still see everything going on in the real New York, but we can't touch it or talk to it.

The first issue of “Made in USA” is devoted to how people create their own spaces, spaces that can be invisible or imaginary. You may have heard this trend called DIY (do-it-yourself) or Amateurism. We like to call it the EMPTY WIDE SPACE trend, a place we can all disappear to, instead of being anti-everything and writing the new manifesto, or instead of being pro-everything and buying the latest CD.

 

Issue 1 Fall/Winter 1999-2000

CONTENTS:

Susan Cianciolo and her communal, schizophrenic approach to design

Actress, a band that pretends it's a band (i.e –dresses like a band)

Fashion shows reviewed by hippies

Thomas Hirschhorn remaking Calvin Klein and Hugo Boss ads into naïve protest art…

Another Naked Lady by Rita Ackermann

Photos by Marcelo Krasilcic

Fashion in My Building by Jim Fletcher

What I Did Last Summer by John Kelsey

Mars 2112 by Dike Blair

Translations of Serge Daney

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Issue 2 Spring/Summer 2000

CONTENTS:

Texts:

Bo & the Gypsies by Chris Kraus

Tom Cruise by David Barker & Antek Walczak

Gillian by Art Club 2000

Film Reviews

Photos by:

Jack Pierson

Mark Borthwick

Annika von Hausswolff

Katja Rahlwes

Coverage:

Peter Fend

Stephan Mallarme

A.R.E Weapons

etc.

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Issue 3 spring/fall 2001

CONTENTS:

Lutheran Letters by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Beets by Jutta Koether

A Short (Recent) History of the New York Knicks by Peter Scott

Inside this Horizon by Josephine Pryde

Un-Made in USA by Sylvere Lotringer & PaulVirilio

Snow Pictures by Patterson Beckwith

Coverage:

H&M

Roberto Cuoghi

Vanessa Beecroft

Frances Scholz

Motivational Champions

Photos by:

Cris Moor

Anders Edstrom

Elfie Semotan

etc.