‘Our hunting fathers told the story
Of the sadness of the creatures,
Pitied the limits and the lack
Set in their finished features;
Saw in the lion’s intolerant look,
Behind the quarry’s dying glare,
Love raging for, the personal glory
That reason’s gift would add’
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
Noah Sheldon for United Bamboo
What an unnerving and enchanting experience to come round of a morning still strung in the harness, peel off the duct tape, spit out the plastic ball and discover a member of one’s own flock spattered across the style sections of Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Cute Overload, LA Times and People, not to mention a thousand dank and fungal corners of Faecesbook and indeed the Dome of the Rock itself, The Daily Show. Not since Dean Kaufman hijacked Yancey Richardson with his Organic Genital Sun Prints have we experienced such an ejaculation of unsolicited publicity. The long-and-the-short of it seems to be that young Noah Sheldon – he who we dandled on our knee to engorging effect almost a decade ago, but who has been a fully-fledged congregant for barely half a year – has recently undertaken a project with Miho Aoki and Thuy Pham of United Bamboo, whereby their Spring 2010 collection was manufactured both for the usual etiolated, underfed caste of childwomen, but also for litter-footed, Sheba-glutted felines (and photographed accordingly). So successful was this enterprise – conducted as a kind of grassroots hipster Williamsburg Idol Kitty Slam, with Facebook friends of the designers and photographer lined up outside the studio nervously clutching their aspiring moggies, drilling them on their audition pieces, soothing agitated catbowels – it was decreed that the feline end of the equation would be crafted into a beautiful, limited edition calendar geared toward the burgeoning fashion/pussy crossover demographic. No sooner had the images gamboled along Sheldon’s firewire than the phones began ringing: proof positive that if the sleepy old chestnuts of Universal Healthcare and War in Asia truly want to penetrate the national consciousness, they might consider taking a leaf from the book of cute animals dressed in human clothing.
Whilst on the subject of agency Wünderkinder … Noah was welcomed into the fold in January with the confident expectation that his first year aboard would garner the usual patronage of Modern Menopause, Men’s Breath and Hangglider Quarterly. Imagine our surprise to find that within a few weeks he was beavering away on a significant, multi-part project for our champion client, Apple, followed by features for Popular Mechanics, Details and FSB, before stone-stepping onto a Bank of America campaign shot double-barreled for Hill Holliday alongside our very own hemi-Persian Alex Tehrani. Barely pausing beside the bidet, we shunted him off to Europe for our Applish colleagues once more and thence to several domestic fleshpots for the very same Applefolk, twin 5D’s blazing in both palms, stills and video mix’d, reason in madness. Whilst lingering beside public lavatories, bars in bowling alleys and at Drive Thru Fatburgers across the nation, Sheldon was simultaneously able to foster a burgeoning art career, participating in an exhibition in a place called Mount Tremper (my rallying cry in the Fourth Form Dormitory c. ’78) and in New York City at D’Amelio Terras where his light shone beneath the triumvirate buttock-bushel of Kiki Smith, Matthew Barney and Robert Gober. I’m starting to wonder whether I’m making this up. Still not content to rest upon his chapped and empimpled laurels, he concocted a show of his very own at Yautepec in Mexico City, behaviour so popular it is rumoured to be reprised in Miami and Tokyo. Back on the hump of the commercial camel, his caravan weaved through the notoriously barren Desert of the Periodical, picking up projects for the last remaining Condé Nast magazine, Wired, before basking at the sweet-watered oasis of Hewlett Packard awhile. And as if this wasn’t enough, as if it wasn’t time to detour to Tangiers for some respite at the Souq of the Boys with the Almond Eyes … up he pops with United Bamboo and their coven of chic kitties (which, by the way, we have just been informed now constitute the backdrop for a Yale University School of Art webpage … encouraging to see that the virus has spread even to the dreaming spires of academia. Here’s hoping the Department of Homeland Security adopt them as their official logo).
And bugger me if we don’t find ourselves having to stop the press for Sheldon’s solo show at Cherry and Martin in Los Angeles, November 7th through December 12th. Okay, that’s quite enough. I feel soiled and sticky and in need of a facecloth.
Biosphere 2 - Noah Sheldon
Post a Comment