Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, we present an exclusive portfolio, celebrating 50 exceptional individuals driving the current discourse on American culture and its dynamic, creative evolution. Unrivalled at what they do and impassioned by their disciplines, some are instantly recognisable and some are not. But whether they are icons, change-makers or cultural renegades, all are creative American voices at the forefront of their field.
Creative America photographed by Inez & Vinoodh
1. Miles Greenberg, performance artist
Dubbed ‘the face of performance art for a new generation’, Miles Greenberg trained with choreographer Édouard Lock, as well as Robert Wilson and Marina Abramović, from whom he picked up an inclination for feats of endurance that push his body and mind to the limits. Sensorially immersive and site-specific, his installations are captured in real-time before the audience to generate later video works and sculptures.
2. Charles Matadin, model and artist
Apart from being a sculpture and electronic music student at RISD, Charles Matadin was perhaps destined for a life in front of the camera, as the son of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Now blazing his own trail, the burgeoning fashion model and artist has recently starred on the covers of Icon, shot by Mark Seliger, and Shadowplay, captured by his parents. He’s also walked in catwalk shows for the likes of Dior, Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs and Rick Owens.
3. Willy Chavarria, fashion designer
CFDA’s American Menswear Designer of 2023 (the first Latino to receive the accolade), Willy Chavarria plays with queer reinterpretations of Latin American culture, providing a commentary on US society through a minority lens. As well as running his own label, he has held roles at Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and American Eagle, each informing his unique spin on Americana that began growing up in a farming community in Fresno, California.
4. Chase Hall, artist
Chase Hall applies coffee to cotton canvas (both inextricably linked to Africa and slavery) to explore ‘the impossible absolute of biracial identity’. Mixed-race and raised in Minnesota, Chicago, Las Vegas, Colorado, LA and New York, the artist is perfectly positioned to reflect on his country’s variety of histories. Using drip-brew techniques derived from coffee beans and acrylic pigments, he aims to liberate his paintings ‘from a legacy of American portraiture’.
5. Ariana Papademetropoulos, artist
Ariana Papademetropoulos has gained a cult following for her ethereal, rainbow-hued paintings that blend mystical imagery and natural forms with figurative elements. The LA-based artist explores themes including femininity and sensuality through both her paintings and the highly stylised photographs of herself – either in costume or nude – that she posts to social media. Catch her dressed as a snail, imitating a zebra, or straddling a giant corn cob.
6. Clare Crespo, artist, author and fantasist
LA-based writer and declared fantasist, Clare Crespo has designed a set of Delft-inspired tiger plates; created an altar piece for a New Orleans hotel, featuring porcelain snakes tied in nautical knots; written, produced and starred in her own children’s cooking show, Yummyfun Kooking (the first three episodes of which she filmed in her garage); and has also written two books on food, Hey There, Cupcake! and The Secret Life of Food, which acts as both cookbook and kids’ story.
7. Mel Ottenberg, editor-in-chief, Interview
Mel Ottenberg’s first high-profile client as a stylist was Courtney Love, circa 2000s. Appointed editor-in-chief of Interview magazine in 2021, he has since created such memorable covers as Kim Kardashian with bleached eyebrows for the American Dream issue, and a smoking Lana Del Rey, interviewed by Billie Eilish. Not content with dressing Rihanna in a yellow cape for the Met Gala, he is now making the magazine he wants to read and, it seems, that everyone else wants to read, too.
8. Jon Shook & Vinny Dotolo, chefs and restaurateurs
James Beard award-winning chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo operate some of LA’s most celebrated restaurants. They put themselves on the map with Animal in 2008, then Son of a Gun in 2011, both of which received critical acclaim, and earned Shook and Dotolo snaps for innovating the city’s dining scene. They also partnered with sommelier Helen Johannesen to open an organic wine shop, and acquired microgrocery Cookbook Market.
9. Raul Lopez, fashion designer
Raul Lopez’s fashion label Luar seems to resonate with the Latin market, American pop stars, streetwear fans and luxury fiends alike. Its collections include the bestselling ‘Ana’ bag, introduced in 2022 and favoured by the likes of Dua Lipa and Rihanna. Lopez’s success is due in part to his celebration of his Dominican roots, with the ‘Ana’s shape a nod to the briefcase, a symbol of American success for many immigrant families.
10. Hoa Xuande, actor
Australian-born, Vietnamese actor Hoa Xuande recently starred in The Sympathizer, an HBO miniseries adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s best-selling debut novel set at the end of the Vietnam War. His breakout role as a spy straddling the fence between North Vietnam and the US, as well as credits in Last King of the Cross and A Stitch in Time, have set up a career trajectory that looks set for multiple award wins.
11. Jeffrey Deitch, art dealer and curator
For almost five decades, Jeffrey Deitch has been a prominent figure in the modern and contemporary art world, as a gallerist, dealer, curator, collector and advisor. With a stint as the director of MOCA in LA; close connections with artists ranging from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jeff Koons; and as the curator of groundbreaking exhibitions, Deitch has seamlessly shifted the perceptions and values of art.
12. Martine Gutierrez, artist and performer
Both MoMA and the Whitney have recently acquired works by Martine Gutierrez, whose practice subverts the language of glossy magazines and advertising to question stereotypes and expose biases. Whether creating billboards for fake jeans brands or self-portraits with mannequins, Gutierrez, who identifies as a non-binary transwoman, asks us what it means to be a woman today.
13. Brian Oakes, artist
Based in New York but working with factories in Shenzhen, Brian Oakes uses circuit boards as a canvas to give life to ‘creatures’ that often present a structure for random sampling and recording, repeating things back to their audience or creating their own ambient drone soundtracks. Oakes describes their work as somewhere between ‘hyper-robotic to the point of natural’ and ‘so organic that it becomes mechanical’.
14. Natalie Brumley, artist and jewellery designer
Born in Kuala Lumpur and raised in Texas, Natalie Brumley focuses on the realm between contemporary art and jewellery design. Currently interning with Parisian jeweller Goossens, she admits to an affinity for metal. Her exploration of all things alloy, learning traditional techniques in its craftsmanship, has led her down a botanically-inspired path, creating forged silver orchid rings and copper fig brooches.
15. Alexander May, creative consultant and curator
Alexander May’s wide-ranging oeuvre includes the curation of large-scale exhibitions, creative direction, brand strategy and set design, and he has worked with top brands ranging from Skims to Ssense. In 2021, he set up creative studio Sized, and a year later opened a minimalist, multifunctional event space in LA. He has also launched Sized Selects, a monthly curation of artworks, design objects and furniture from around the world.
16. Leilah Babirye, sculptor
In 2015, Leilah Babirye fled to New York from her native Uganda after being publicly outed in a local newspaper. Her artworks celebrate her adoptive city by repurposing its waste, which she welds and burnishes into figurative sculptures. Represented by Max Hetzler, Stephen Friedman and Gordon Robichaux galleries, Babirye uses her work to respond to the anti-homosexuality legislation that has been recently passed in her home country.
17. Nili Lotan, fashion designer
The self-described queen of Tribeca, Nili Lotan spent more than 20 years honing her design skills at companies such as Ralph Lauren before launching her eponymous label in 2003, in her forties. It’s now a $100m brand beloved for its high-quality, timeless basics, and impressively, Lotan built this success without ever taking part in fashion shows, preferring to bet on communication and sustainability.
18. Paola Antonelli, curator
Few people have had such an impact on contemporary design collection as Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s senior curator of architecture and design (and a 2019 Wallpaper* Design Awards judge), whose fascination lies where design intersects with other fields. She was at the forefront of rapid collecting, building the museum’s archive of culture-defining objects as they gained importance rather than years later, and she frequently hosts R&D Salons to identify new directions.
19. Pamela Shamshiri, interior designer
Born in Tehran and raised in California, interior designer Pamela Shamshiri was one of the four founding partners of design studio Commune before launching her eponymous practice in 2016. Her first monograph, also self-titled, was released last year and documents Studio Shamshiri’s work reimagining historic properties, including midcentury masterpieces by architects such as Rudolph Schindler and A Quincy Jones.
20. Chris Wolston, artist and designer
Channelling an interest in non-Western traditions and techniques into his colourful and expressive works, Chris Wolston uses a unique approach to art and design that has landed him collaborations with the likes of Fendi, Phillip Lim and Dior. Some of his most recognisable pieces, like the ‘Nalgona’ chair series, can be found in the permanent collections of museums around the world. He now splits his time between Brooklyn and Medellín.
21. Jane Mayle, fashion designer
When early 2000s fashion came back in vogue a few years ago, Jane Mayle was once again thrust into the spotlight, as young generations rediscovered the playfully feminine dresses that she once sold from her boutique on Elizabeth Street in New York. The indie model-turned-designer therefore recently relaunched and rebranded her label, now called Maison Mayle, carrying the same boho-influenced, print-forward aesthetic, but with a few updates.
22. Dan Colen, artist
Originally known on New York’s art scene for being drunk and disorderly with his friends Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen still has his Brooklyn studio but is now largely based at his upstate New York farm. Exploring the artistic possibilities of chewing gum led him to create highly sought-after, Jackson Pollock-like canvases, and his experiments with everyday objects continue with his hyperrealist paintings of J Crew catalogue pages or curtains made from crack pipes.
23. Lindsey Adelman, lighting designer
Lindsey Adelman’s sculptural combinations of blown-glass orbs with delicate metal armatures, and various chains and accessories, have resulted in a series of covetable lighting collections. Recently, she’s turned her attention to reviving the ancient oil lamp as part of an artful collaboration with artisan glass blowers, which she debuted during New York Design Week 2024 in May.
24. Christopher Stringer & Elizabeth Paige Smith, product designer and artist
Artist and designer Elizabeth Paige Smith, known as a collected furniture designer, spent ten years living and working at a remote Frank Lloyd Wright house in Woodside, California, with her partner entrepreneur Christopher Stringer, a former industrial designer at Apple. Together they continue to develop stunning environments, notably their Venice Beach House. Pushing further, Smith has transformed her focus and is readying a sculptural body of artwork for an upcoming debut exhibition at The Brick gallery in Los Angeles, while Stringer has founded the audio company Syng.
@elizabethpaigesmithart, @christopherjstringer
25. Amy Sall, writer and editor
A multi-hyphenate New Yorker with Senegalese roots, Amy Sall is the Columbia-educated founding editor of SUNU: Journal of African Affairs, Critical Thought + Aesthetics, as well as a part-time lecturer and model. Thames & Hudson has just published her first book, The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema and Power, which offers an exploration of postcolonial and contemporary African photography and cinema.
26. Aquaria, drag performer and DJ
One of the first drag queens to grace the red carpet at the Met Gala in 2019, Aquaria (aka Giovanni Palandrani) has inordinate amounts of charisma, verve and talent. After winning RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2018 at the tender age of 21, she described drag as both ‘a form of entertainment and a form of hope’. She quickly became a fashion-world favourite, appearing in an issue of Vogue Italia, and signing to IMG Models.
27. Ales Ortuzar, art dealer
Ales Ortuzar’s gallery, Ortuzar Projects, recently moved into a new space triple the size of its original Tribeca location. His hunch that focusing on international 20th- and 21st-century artists overlooked in the US could be of interest to institutions trying to diversify their collections proved to be a stroke of genius. Launched with a show dedicated to French abstract painter Michel Parmentier, his gallery looks after a roster of 14 now-sought-after artists.
28. Shirley Kurata, costume designer and stylist
Bold and colourful, the signature style of Japanese-American stylist Shirley Kurata has been a big hit with celebrities such as Billie Eilish and Pharrell Williams. Last year, she was nominated for an Academy Award for best costume design for her work on indie film Everything Everywhere All at Once, while her gender-neutral streetwear is flying off the shelves of her East Hollywood boutique, Virgil Normal.
29. David Hertz, architect
David Hertz’s Studio of Environmental Architecture was way ahead of its time in designing and building sustainably, as shown by the 747 Wing House in Malibu, made from upcycled plane parts. Sustainability and regeneration within the built environment have been his top concerns for the past 40 years, and he continues to innovate as the global climate crisis worsens. He is also the co-founder of the Resilience Fund for Advancing Climate Technologies.
30. Bianca Chen & Joel Chen, art and design curator and antiques dealer
LA antique dealer Joel Chen founded his West Hollywood gallery, JF Chen, in 1974, supplying American consumers with the work of early modernist designers. He also frequently works with filmmakers and set decorators to source pieces for TV and film. His daughter Bianca is a successful curator and art consultant in her own right, with recent solo shows of work by Tahmineh Javanbakht and Hun Chung Lee under her belt.
31. Jess Cuevas, artist and creative director
The artwork for Madonna’s Celebration tour came courtesy of Jess Cuevas, an artist and creative director who has worked with many of the top culture-defining publications including Paper, Totem and Candy. His unique takes on iconic imagery and fashion editorials blur the definitions of photography, graphics, and creative and art direction – see his recent work featuring Camila Cabello, Amanda Lepore and, of course, Madonna as great examples.
32. Lisa Cortés, film director and producer
From Oscar-winning film Precious to Little Richard: I am Everything, film producer and director Lisa Cortés’ work highlights social issues from the point of view of an always-relatable character. With a trajectory taking her from Connecticut to Hollywood, via Yale, Def Jam and Mercury Records, Cortés is a woman with many interests, including Black literature, hip-hop and fly fishing. Next up is The Empire of Ebony, a documentary about the Black media powerhouse.
33. Louisa Jacobson, actor
The daughter of Meryl Streep and sculptor Don Gummer, Louisa Jacobson currently stars in HBO’s period drama The Gilded Age. She initially tried to eschew the limelight, studying psychology and working in advertising, but was drawn to the stage, securing a place at Yale School of Drama. She recently finished filming romcom Materialists, directed by Celine Song, whose directorial debut, Past Lives, received critical acclaim.
34. Humberto Leon, fashion designer and restaurateur
As the co-founder of cult fashion brand Opening Ceremony, launched in 2002, Humberto Leon cemented his status as a tastemaker. He and professional partner Carol Lim were then tapped to be co-creative directors for Kenzo, and spent eight years helming the brand. In 2020, Leon shifted his focus to LA’s culinary scene and opened three restaurants that redefine experiential dining: Chifa in 2020, and Monarch and Arroz & Fun in 2023.
35. Indya Moore, actor, model and social activist
Indya Moore shot to fame in FX drama series Pose, a Ryan Murphy production about the ballroom scene in 1980s/90s New York, and has since had roles in blockbuster movies, indie flicks and music videos. As a transgender and non-binary person, Moore is an activist for social equality and trans rights, speaking frequently on issues that affect LGBTQ+ and other marginalised communities. Using her platform to inspire others landed Moore on the Time 100 list in 2019.
36. Gabriel Hendifar, designer and creative director
Gabriel Hendifar has been able to generate unprecedented buzz, with his lighting brand Apparatus, creating minimal, industrial forms that are often influenced by his Persian heritage. The brand’s three showrooms, in New York, LA and London, are periodically refreshed with an entirely new concept, and relaunched with a lavish themed party to celebrate, typically with a guestlist that reads as a who’s who of the creative industry.
37. Pierce Abernathy, recipe developer, chef and model
Pierce Abernathy started out producing food videos for BuzzFeed before getting noticed online when his own recipe posts began to rack up the likes. He is also now a model, walking for the likes of Gucci and Helmut Lang. He continues to share mouth watering videos of recipes for dishes such as strawberry clafoutis; works with eco-focused collective Aerthship; and writes a Substack called ‘Don’t Skip The Dip!’ (fans can also buy matching socks with the slogan).
38. Jordan Wolfson, artist
Multimedia artist Jordan Wolfson uses tools such as CGI, animatronics and VR, manipulated to interrogate our relationship with technology and the media. His thought-provoking works include Female Figure and Colored Sculpture, capturing the viewer’s attention through a disconcerting mix of sound and movement. More recent pieces include Body Sculpture, a robotic cube that simulates a series of human gestures.
39. Takako Yamaguchi, artist
There has been a recent surge in interest in the 72-year-old Takako Yamaguchi, with her paintings appearing in high-profile sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and at the latest Whitney Biennial. Her practice merges geometric shapes and nature-inspired patterns to create works that stand out for their precision, elaborate details and stylised form, referencing Japanese printmaking as well as art nouveau and deco styles.
40. Edwina von Gal, landscape designer
Edwina von Gal has created natural, sustainable landscape designs for the likes of Richard Meier, Calvin Klein and Cindy Sherman. After designing a park for a Frank Gehry museum in Panama, she began campaigning for reforestation in the country, branching out to found the Perfect Earth Project to promote nature-based, toxic-free land care practices. She is anti perfectly manicured lawns and all for clovers and long blades swaying in the wind.
41. Christine & John Gachot, interior designers
The Gachots design elegant pared-back spaces unique to their location, with past projects including the Shinola Hotel in Detroit, cosmetics brand Glossier’s debut New York flagship store and Marc Jacobs’ West Village townhouse. They have also created incredible homes for themselves: they live in Paul Rudolph’s former home, a modernist penthouse in Manhattan known for its dizzying layout, and also have a retreat on Shelter Island.
42. Johnny Ortiz-Concha & Maida Branch, artists and chefs
Spurred on by a passion for food, the New Mexico-based Johnny Ortiz-Concha and Maida Branch (pictured here with their daughter Florá) founded Shed in 2017 as ‘an ecosystem of practices that come together in the form of dinners celebrating nature and the fleeting of time’. Not only do they serve up dishes featuring canyon grape and foraged weeds at a long communal table, but they also create the tableware using local clay, beeswax and cedar.
43. Jeffrey Gibson, artist
Jeffrey Gibson’s work is characterised by vibrant colour and pattern and the Choctaw-Cherokee artist is currently basking in the success of his critically-acclaimed US Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale, the country’s first solo presentation by an Indigenous artist at the event. Recent projects, including a collaboration with Dior and a book titled An Indigenous Present, have helped to cement him as one of America’s most important contemporary artists.
44. Louise Bonnet & Adam Silverman, painter and sculptor
Louise Bonnet’s large-scale works in oil touch on multiple themes ranging from sex and beauty to tension and humour. However, they gained new significance when paired with her husband Adam Silverman’s highly sculptural ceramic vessels as part of a site-specific exhibition at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House last year, highlighting the globular forms visible in both of their works.
@louisebonnetstudio @adamsilvermanstudio
45. Dara, fashion director, Interview
Gender non-conforming model-turned-stylist Dara made her catwalk debut in 2017 for Marc Jacobs where her runway skills were praised by none other than Erdem Moralıoğlu. Now the fashion director of Interview magazine, more recently, her talents as a stylist got noticed when she dressed actor Hunter Schafer in a bold floral piece by Marni and a hand-painted panelled number by Schiaparelli for Schafer’s first major Hollywood press tour.
46. Stephen Galloway, creative movement director
Stephen Galloway has built on a 25-year career in ballet and dance theatre, translatinghis experience across fields that span musical performance, fashion photography, costume design and brand consultancy. He has been a creative movement director for the likes of Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and Issey Miyake, while his ability to create a dance that can go viral, as he did with Miley Cyrus’ Flowers video, is a priceless commodity in today’s world.
47. John Derian, designer
John Derian has long been obsessed with decoupage, the art of cutting and pasting paper, and he and his small team of artisans are constantly creating decorative home items with imagery from an ever-expanding collection of 18th and 19th century prints. His pieces, which include collaborations with many high-end designers and brands, are sold under his brand Decoupage at homeware stores worldwide, as well as at his own boutique in Manhattan’s East Village.
48. Kathy Ryan, photography director and photographer
Kathy Ryan was The New York Times Magazine’s photography director for more than three decades, an experience that kickstarted her book Office Romance, a collection of photographs taken in and around the Renzo Piano-designed NYT HQ. She stepped down from the role this year, but her department’s recent spectacular commissions include an unforgettable story by Lynsey Addario about the Ukrainian front line and a portfolio by James Nachtwey on ‘actors in the wild’.
49. Jordan Kahn, chef and creative director
At 17, Jordan Kahn became the youngest intern ever at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry after sending the chef a nine-page application letter. Stints under Grant Achatz and Michael Mina led to the opening of his first restaurant, Red Medicine, in 2010. His penchant for expressionist desserts has had him compared to Jackson Pollock, while his three Culver City restaurants (Destroyer, Meteora and Vespertine) offer deliciously avant-garde dining experiences.
50. Arthur Jafa, artist and cinematographer
Now in the collections of MoMA and MOCA, video artist Arthur Jafa’s seven-minute video essay Love is the Message, The Message is Death, set to Kanye West’s song Ultralight Beam, features a series of found images and clips exploring African American lives and resiliency. Winner of Venice’s Golden Lion in 2019 for The White Album, he also creates memorable visuals for music videos including Jay-Z’s 4:44, Solange’s Don’t Touch My Hair and Kanye West’s Wash Us in the Blood.
Lighting director: Jodokus Driessen. VLM Studio art director: Marc Kroop. Digi tech: Brian Anderson. Photography assistants: Fyodor Shiryaev, Chris Davis, Andrew Harless and Emma Mortimer. Producers: Michael Gleeson and John Nadhazi. Agent: Kim Pollock. Casting: Shay Nielsen Casting. LA portraits shot at Sized Ltd, with special thanks to Alexander May, sized.ltd, @sized_ltd
This article appears in the August 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, a guide to Creative America, available to download free when you sign up to our daily digest of news, in print on newsstands from 4 July, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
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