Friends of Style | Andrew Berardini
September 12, 2008 · Print This Article
Der in Los Angeles lebende Autor schreibt, blogt und projektentwickelt für Artforum, Art Review, Afterall, andere Kunstmagazine und natürlich The Expanded Field. Zurzeit ist er Redakteur der Architekturplattform Check-In Architecture. Eine mehrmonatige Reise führte ihn kürzlich ins alte Europa, froh war er trotzdem zurück in Huntington Beach zu sein – die Burritos dort sind einfach besser.
What do you do?
I write mostly, occasionally get into (and hopefully out of) great amounts of mischief.
Where are you from?
It depends on who’s asking. If I’m in Shenzhen it’s just easiest to say Los Angeles. If I’m feeling effusive I’m from a tract home in the cinder block lined streets of Huntington Beach, CA. If I’m feeling mischievous, I make something up on the spot, the more poetically bent the better.
Where do you go?
I try to go where people touch each other in friendly ways. Handshakes, hugs, back pattings, hair rubs, kisses on cheeks all count in this direction. I often end up going other places, mostly banal unfriendly sites of routine, the laundromat, the grocery store, the train station. These are all regular commutes, oftentimes I go to these places even if I’m in more exotic climes, living in Milan for four months, I still spent about as much time at the grocery store as I did in Places of Cultural Import. I spent as much trying to read to figure how to say Hair Conditioner in Italian (balsamo) as I did looking at “The Last Supper” by Da Vinci.
Where do you like to be most?
I like to be most in a mildly uncomfortable chair, surrounded by people talking, interesting to glance up at up occasionally (preferably with unscoffable sex appeal), a hot cup of coffee on the table in front of me, a freshly lit cigarette dangling from my lips, my hands firmly grasping a book of considerable heft.
What do you believe in?
See below.
What do you NOT believe in (any more)?
“I don’t believe in magic. _I don’t believe in I-ching, _I don’t believe in bible, _I don’t believe in tarot, _I don’t believe in Hitler, _I don’t believe in Jesus, _I don’t believe in Kennedy, _I don’t believe in Buddha, _I don’t believe in mantra, _I don’t believe in Gita, _I don’t believe in yoga, I don’t believe in kings, _I don’t believe in Elvis, _I don’t believe in Zimmerman, _I don’t believe in Beatles, _I just believe in me…” — John Lennon
What do you love? (preferably: in your line of work / passion)
I love that I can include anything from my metaphors and mentions list for future essays and reviews: sailors in beauty parlors, blind commissioners, tight-rope walkers, the circus, the riot squad, Cinderella, Bette Davis, Romeo, fortunetellers, Cain, Abel, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Good Samaritan, Ophelia, Einstein, Noah, Robin Hood, The Phantom of the Opera, Casanova, skinny girls, the agents, Nero’s Neptune, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, calypso singers, fisherman holding flowers, and lovely mermaids.
What do you hate? (preferably: in your line of work / passion)
Being broke, having money, unscrupulous editors, being broke.
What are you reading/listening to right now?
Listening: Lavender’s “Diamond’s Imagine Our Love.” Reading: Rachel Kushner’s “Telex From Cuba”
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