The second sleek T-shirt has been designed by French artist/illustrator/designer Frédérique Daubal. Our plan was to give this away with each new subscription to sleek only, but as numerous requests have reached us asking for the shirt not a subscription (do you have any idea how it feels for a magazine to lose to a T?!), here you go. It has a straight slim fit and the boy’s cut comes with a pretty tight collar, so you might want to go for a larger size. Please order online and send an email with your size request to sophie@sleekmag.com. Boys M, L, XL, XXL, girls S, M, L, XL.

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One and a half years after the announcement of the biggest financial crisis of all times we find ourselves asking what, if anything, has really changed. Sure, a few fashion houses had to close down, and there are a couple less magazines gracing the newsstands. The art market, however, according to a recent report in The Economist, has produced a higher turnover in 2009 than in 2006.

Welcome! Please come in and take a seat, your dinner is served. We’ll skip the aperitif, amuse-gueules, hors d’oeuvres and other fancy starters and get right to the figurative meat of it all – this issue’s theme is essential stuff. No one can escape it, we’re all addicted to it and all equal before it – or rather below it, like amebas, or »shitting animalcules,« as Jonathan Meese would say. And we all must think and care about it all the time: FOOD.

Now for »Home | Garden«. It’s a topic, which conjures good thoughts. A topic to bask in, to dream about, and to remember... a beautiful summer, the onset of autumn, the smell of freshly cut grass, bees buzzing in the afternoon sun, jubilant children shrieking in the pool, the comforting sound of tennis balls bouncing on the court. The red clay of the court is shaded from view by the luscious trees leading up to the house – a treasure trove of intellectual stimulation and aesthetic perfection full of life, art and beautiful garments.

»The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play«, the British universal historian Arnold Toynbee (1989-1975) once said, pleading for people to have more fun in their work. But what does this mean for someone who has so much fun working that others consider it frivolity? The line between work and play may be blurred but mustn’t become completely invisible. Even the most fun-oriented freelancers in the creative fields have to admit that their work wouldn’t be acknowledged as such without the occasional moaning about too big a workload or too tight deadlines. Work must never look like play. Because even amongst those who produce immaterial values rather than goods, there still are those who believe that no »real« work is involved in a product that has no utility – a piece of art, for example. [...]

Five times four equals twenty. Twenty. Two Zero. 20. Seems like a smallish number. If you’re seventy and look back fondly at twenty, it seems charmingly insignificant. But if you’re five and look up to twenty, it’s huge. In dog years, twenty is one hundred and forty. Or maybe we should calculate in hours or better minutes or seconds or nanoseconds to push that number up to something that begins to reflect our sense of accomplishment at somehow someway reaching our twentieth issue.

Astronomer Carl Sagan spoke in awe of the billions and billions of galaxies in the universe. Inconceivable. Incomprehensible. So how does one even begin to deal with the trillions and trillions of reported global wealth lost in one day? Big or Small, everything it seems is indeed relative.

So in this issue, we’ve scoured the known universe to bring you art and fashion and those individuals who we feel can bring some perspective on themes of relativity and scale. It’s our Einsteinian issue, if you will. We’ll take you through on a journey through our curated collection of artists who’ve created their own miniature worlds, to those, like Jeff Koons, for whom size is everything. From lovely ladies stuffed in a box, to a fashion forward Gulliverienne dominating the world. And as an added bonus – succumbing and overcoming peer pressure in a big way – we’re presenting a sleek first: The most comprehensive, influential and simply greatest of all the greatest art world

rankings of all time!

We’re TWENTY!!! We’re here!!! We’re sleek!!! Onward to bigger numbers, bigger issues – simply the bestest ever!!!

Five times four equals twenty. Twenty. Two Zero. 20. Seems like a smallish number. If you’re seventy and look back fondly at twenty, it seems charmingly insignificant. But if you’re five and look up to twenty, it’s huge. In dog years, twenty is one hundred and forty. Or maybe we should calculate in hours or better minutes or seconds or nanoseconds to push that number up to something that begins to reflect our sense of accomplishment at somehow someway reaching our twentieth issue.

Astronomer Carl Sagan spoke in awe of the billions and billions of galaxies in the universe. Inconceivable. Incomprehensible. So how does one even begin to deal with the trillions and trillions of reported global wealth lost in one day? Big or Small, everything it seems is indeed relative.

So in this issue, we’ve scoured the known universe to bring you art and fashion and those individuals who we feel can bring some perspective on themes of relativity and scale. It’s our Einsteinian issue, if you will. We’ll take you through on a journey through our curated collection of artists who’ve created their own miniature worlds, to those, like Jeff Koons, for whom size is everything. From lovely ladies stuffed in a box, to a fashion forward Gulliverienne dominating the world. And as an added bonus – succumbing and overcoming peer pressure in a big way – we’re presenting a sleek first: The most comprehensive, influential and simply greatest of all the greatest art world

rankings of all time!

We’re TWENTY!!! We’re here!!! We’re sleek!!! Onward to bigger numbers, bigger issues – simply the bestest ever!!!

Stillness has become one of our most valuable and rare commodities – at least it sure seems so at sleek right before we go to press. Even for those who are less frantic and chaotic than we, it seems like it’s never been so difficult to organise a bit of real calm into our lives. Even our designated downtimes, like plane travel, vacations, even sleep, can’t entirely escape the competitive, inter-connected, ever onward drive. Or again, maybe it’s just us. Anyway, one thing’s for sure, movement has become one of our most powerful and relentless of gods – whether in the form of fast cars, twittering, political sound-bites, ever more art fairs and ever shorter 100 meter world records.

Reason enough for sleek to take on this theme. And what could be more to the point given how sport dominates so much of today’s perpetual motion cult, than showing you the artists whom we feel have created the world’s most fascinating and important works on the theme of sport and art – even if they haven’t necessarily run 100 meters through museums or, as Daniel Richter has, taken up kick-boxing in their studios. Or jumped all the hurdles of bringing this and far, far more into one publication. For example, we also give you six restless Berliners who are keeping lots moving in our ever-dynamic hometown. And then there’s the fetching fashion forward images accompanying Bernhard Willhelm’s interview about his new, dance-inspired collection, a bizarrely static hosiery epic, travelling bus stops, senseless video stills… there’s plenty on hand to move even the most dedicated vegetable.

Anyway, with this issue of sleek, now more than ever, and maybe because we are all so exhausted from our own private marathon, we also wish to give you something exceedingly rare – something to contemplate, to slow down with or perhaps even as means to reach that ever illusive state of physical if not mental stillness. But only just for a moment …

sleek’s beginnings date back five years, and if we had the same look today as we did back then, we would have long vanished from the market. The edition that you’re currently reading also features a few changes. For one, all the short text pieces are now also in German. You asked for it! But the big change is that there is now a Berlin section. On first thought, it wouldn’t seem sensible at all for an international art and fashion magazine to have a local section. But, on second thoughts, it actually does, because a Berlin section these days is an international one. Why’s that? Almost half of the artworks at the last documenta were made by artists living in Berlin. And the same was the case at the last Venice Biennale. The Danish embassy in Berlin estimates that already 30% of all Danish artists are living in Berlin. So a look at what’s happening in Berlin is, at the same time, a look at the world. It might well be that our capital is like a teenager going through puberty, denying the pimples in his face and living off his parents but still willing to try his luck with the ladies. But even if Berlin can’t do much else well, it can do art. And its fashion keeps getting better too. So it’s high time for a Berlin section. For who knows how long this will last?

The secret behind sleek? It’s child’s play. That is, if you define childhood by dramatic mood swings, temper tantrums, fleeting moments of pure joy, a short but intense attention span and the thrill of discovery. In short, it’s always been a not-so-very-grownup game. This time the game is called Hide | Seek. The act of searching for meaning, for information, for love and rewards is – pardon the pretension – life itself. So, as the creative world becomes ever more democratic and the search for quality and meaning ever more complex we’ve decided to lighten it up (no scary environmental issues or corpse art here) with masked balls, mysteries and hiding throughout the magazine lots of tricks and visual plays aimed to bring out our collective curious kid.
What else lurks behind our sleek surface? Well, it seems that in the first meetings for each issue we think our theme sucks (we always find it brilliant and profound once the process begins). And again, we painfully reconsider ditching our thematic opposites and stress over the oft-opposing demands of the worlds of art, fashion and commerce. Truth is, we’re all schizophrenic. And what we present is pretty damned complex and contradictory as well. So, like the big kids we are, we’re sticking to our guns, psychotically soldiering on in the quest (oops, that’s another magazine) to bring you more of what’s meaningful beyond our offices in the city known for its split personality.

Perhaps in an unambiguous, pure world it would be easy to assign value to this issue’s thematic dichotomy. But in these convoluted times, in fashion, celebrity, media, even art, »purity« is a suspect, boring and »dirtiness« a hot and edgy. But in terms of today’s trendiest issue, the environment (wars, terrorism, AIDS etc. have become a bit passé), the values are comfortingly clear-cut again. Who, for god’s sake, could ever argue that pure, clean air and water are anything but good – except maybe for plankton and such who like a bit of »schmutz«. And speaking of god, what about fundamentalists of every ilk who, in the name of the »purity«, justify just about anything?
Stating sleek’s themes as opposites gives our staff and contributors complex and relevant territory to explore – and lots of headaches. But with our 16th thematic voyage, we’ve hit paydirt (the »pay« in the dirt was pure gold). The realities of quarterly publication mean that we must choose our themes well in advance. While hopefully always relevant, it’s more difficult to be topical. however with this theme, we find in the last hours leading to press, both our topic and our contributors are in the headlines daily. So, while we’re busy patting ourselves on our backs for our prescience, we hope you’ll get on with the business of making the world a better, cleaner place safe in the knowledge that it’s the fashionable thing to do.

Before WWI. After the Kaiser. Before the Weimar Republic. After Kristallnacht. Before the end of WWII. After Hitler. Be-fore the Wall. After the Wall… While every city has its turning points, distinct moments in time and history before which or after which everything changes, Berlin is arguably the most dynamic and radical of the world’s shape and social shifters. One doesn’t have to dig down through layers of archaeological ruin to discover Berlin’s past, present and future, you just walk from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, street to street, building to building. Berlin: a city on the constant cusp of now, a city that both cherishes and destroys what came before as rapidly as it creates what comes after.

sleek, with a pregnant dichotomy at its core; fashion and art, themes of opposites divided by a line, a stroke – the cusp – found its perfect adoptive home in this city. We built the magazine on a somewhat schizophrenic concept – attempting to capture both the razor’s edge of our zeitgeist while striving to create something a bit less ephemeral in the world of glossies.

Before | After is our 15th publication in what’s been four stressed out, argumentative, crisis laden, but ultimately deeply satisfying years spurred on by our extraordinary contributors and loyal readers who have followed us on our erratic journey so far.

So, while Berlin and now is where we live, what fascinates us – keeps us manic/depressively moving toward the future – is what comes after…

In these times when everything from politics, to global warming, to fashion and art seems near the brink of overheated meltdown, we decided to concentrate on two of the three basic states of matter: solid and liquid (everyone has enough gas). There are all kinds of boring physics to explain these different states of matter, but as usual we decided to find out what an exemplary group of artists, photographers and designers had to say on the subject. What we’ve discovered along the way is that solids and liquids are not only states of matter, but also states of mind – nothing is fixed and life flows. But you already knew that.
And speaking of flux and change and life in motion, sleek’s on the move as well. Here in this issue we’ve even included one of the most basic forms of motion art, a flip book, but for something more cutting edge (we’re talking form not content here) be sure to keep checking with our ever-growing motion platform at www.sleekmag.com. And when you’re in Berlin be sure to look up to see the new pieces on display on Europe’s largest LED screen atop the Axel Springer building.
And, what else, oh yes, we have a new trendy mascot, Bozo, a street dog from Athens who has somehow found his way to adorn our urban chic Berlin office. And of course we’ll be attending Colophon, the first conference exclusively dedicated to magazine publications in that trend capital, Luxembourg. So sleek is definitely in a fluid state…catch us if you can.

Artistic and creative impulses once trickled slowly down from high culture to influence popular culture. This high to low dynamic has dramatically changed. Impulses now come from the street as much, if not more so, than from an artistic and fashion elite. Even the very terms »high« and »popular« culture seem outdated and irrelevant. What is above and below, in front and behind, pop or fine is all part of Street l Elite, the theme we will be exploring in this, our biggest and most ambitious issue to date – thanks in part to a special section on art and the ultimate street machine – the car. Along our journey through this brave new topsy-turvy world, we’ve interviewed an art curator who shares his educated insights on the globalization and democratization of the art and art markets. We’ve talked to one of the founders of the Fluxus movement, which tried and ultimately failed in creating anti-elitist art. We’ll be looking at how street art is making its way into the spaces once reserved for the elite. We’ll see how artists have appropriated ghetto bling using diamonds and gold, caviar and crystals – is this just a cynical attempt to make art into a luxury product? – and how other artists recycle the lowliest of trash. We’ll look to fashion, photography, art and shoes in the streets of Paris, Belgium, Berlin, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Virtual Reality and Wuppertal. And again and again we’ll see Diana touch her very elite feet to the street.

sleek emerges from our blood, sweat and tears – because so many Germans work to create it. Nevertheless, we’d love you to get rough this time and crumple the cover. This is how artist Terence Koh intended it: rip off the top cover, scrunch up the aluminium foil into a ball, straighten it out a little and – enjoy the art! Terence is our cover boy for the theme East | West. Born in China, raised in Canada and now living in Berlin, he embodies a modern form of world nomadism, which did away with the traditional geographical notion long ago. East / West was once a clear-cut affair, when a conflict of the same name still existed. How easy it was to divide the world into good and bad, left and right or up and down. Today such clarity eludes us. Yet the notion of East / West has almost became again what it used to be: a simple geographical term. In our case the term stretches from India to Nepal, and from Berlin to Los Angeles. And here’s something else which should be mentioned for our own sake: this autumn we actually celebrate two premieres. With support from publishing house Axel Springer, we’ll be showing media art in Berlin in public – and not just anywhere but on Europe’s largest electronic display. On our website you can still find the entire magazine to download; but we’ve also created a platform for video art with the launch of this issue. So basically you can’t escape us: on paper, on the web and in the open air, in the East or West – sleek is simply everywhere. Your sleek team.

Science tells us that having prejudices is a matter of survival. It would be too time-consuming to always start from scratch gathering information before arriving at a balanced view. By then we would have been devoured by a sabertooth tiger or crushed by a car. In these suspicious, politically correct times, however, this mechanism has its limits. Is twisted really what it seems? Or under closer scrutiny, is it really quite straightforward? Several of this issue's contributors formulate this question within a sexual context: whether butt/anal massages administered by AA Bronson, images of gender-bending by Risk Hazekamp, Elena Dorfman's work with sex-dolls or Thomas Weisskopf's portraits of individuals who are outside classic sexual stereotypes. But we were also interested in the formal aspects of our theme – which is how this issue suddenly turned quite hairy; which explains the curly heads of Ralph Mecke or Jen Ray’s illustrations, which incidently, you can now have as a t-shirt. Then there's Chrystl Rijkeboer with one of the most unsettling takes on hair: using human hair to knit masks and other objects (some members of our team were absolutely against featuring her work, because it reminded them too much of what was done with human hair during the Nazi times). How soothing, by contrast, are the straight and twisted lines in our section on abstract painting – at least according to our own prejudices. Your sleek team.

The contrasting concept of comic tragic may be an old one, but we believe it to be more relevant than ever. Indeed both elements might be taken to their extremes in the future. That was reason enough for us to make it the theme of our spring issue: »Muslims, Munich and Monroe«. Our Monroe is however not the real thing, but rather a Marilyn fan photographed by Tina Bara. This act of self-staging reveals the tragedy of an icon imprisoned by her star status. Christoph Draeger’s drastic images remind us that Munich isn’t just a worldwide synonym for Oktoberfest. And Brigitte Niedermair dares to enter a Muslim context: the comedy of playing hide and seek by concealing western luxury products beneath the chador is darkened by the tragedy of the socially oppressed women who wear them. It gets really tragi-comic in our series of short interviews with dead artists in which we asked some of the dead-famous about their personal views on posthumous fame. The work of certain artists would certainly be more reasonably priced if they hadn’t died tragically: death sells. Fortunately things didn’t go that far when Melodie McDaniel photographed her visions of the suicidal fantasies of a young woman. We naturally demand the full mental and physical presence of those involved in making sleek magazine, but when model Kemp happily dangled herself over a hotel balcony four storeys up without a harness, we were a bit worried. Maybe we should choose a less life-threatening theme next time. Your sleek team.

What do the altars of artist Thomas Hirschhorn have in common with the hunting scenes of painter Erik Schmidt? Nothing? We, naturally, have a different opinion. After all, each issue of sleek is dedicated to a single theme in the form of paired opposites. This time we were interested in the seemingly inseparable dichotomy of flesh and spirit. Anyone who has to set up after a bender knows how tense this relationship can be. There is also reason why religions deal so intensively with this universal theme. Even if they fail as we do when confronted with the alarm clock. Thus, it’s not surprising that this issue reflects a wide range of reflections on religion and spirituality: Thomas Hirschhorn’s altars, Clemencia Labin’s Madonna images and the truly remarkable Kunst-Station St. Peter.
But, there is no spirit without flesh – to be found in the sacrificial flesh of the hunting images of Erik Schmidt, our collection of art tattoos ort he massive corporeal presence of Ron Mueck’s sculptures. Our fashion spreads as well have little but flesh in mind: the covering or reveiling of it. Photographers Thomas Hintermeier, Takis Bibelas, Debora Mittelstaedt or Detlef Schneider show us how it’s done. This time, we asked no less than Babylonian King Gilgamesh for his comments only to find that, surprise, surprise, our theme was much a nagging bother then, as it is now. The sleek team

Mankind has been trying to shed light into the dark forever. In the beginning there was fire. Today there is the energy-saving light-bulb. And somewhere along the way there was Enlightenment, which the French hardly by coincidence called »Siècle des Lumières«. A »Century of Light« they were hoping would drive away the darkness of the Middle Ages. A bright idea, still relevant more than two hundred years on. Regrettably, some might say. The eighth edition of sleek magazine collects a number of contrasting points of view on brightness and darkness, light and night. For example, we were inspired by Jacqueline Humphries’ light paintings in the dark of the night. Or by Muhammad Ali, who ist he oinly person we actually believe, when he claims to be faster than light. Never mind Einstein. Also, we would like you to take a close look at our collection of light-bulbs. They reflect the great number of artists, who use light as a means of artistic expression – but possibly also because creative creatures are creatures of the night? Photographer Albrecht Fuchs sheds some light on this question in a series of artist portraits. By contrast, Stephanie Schneider’s Polaroids certainly don’t seem to shun the light at all. Their lustrous brightness whisks us back into our own past. And the Danish cult band we greatly admire, The Ravonettes, was kind enough to compose such fitting song texts for their new CD »Pretty in Black« that we just had to squeeze them into the »Light | Night« edition. The sleek team.

To resist or to adapt? Not so long ago even the most fundamental of life’s decisions were easy: The church prescribed what to think and the state how to act. Today, we enjoy the dubious privilege of having only ourselves to answer to for our decisions. We now have the possibility and the necessity to invent and keep reinventing ourselves. What previously was permitted only to the privileged few has become the responsibility for most of us. Set against this background, sleek 07 focuses on how visually creative individuals respond to the challenge. The Parisian artist collective la forge conquers public space, resisting the law of the land. Japanese artist Tatsurou Bashi is so ingenious about adapting elements within the public sphere that he forces us to question our conventions about how we look at things. Debora Mittelstaedt portrays pubescent young people caught between rebellion and obedience. George Bernard Shaw – quoted here in a visualization by Christian Küpker – elegantly stands the conventions of the usefulness of resisting and adapting on its head: it’s not reason and adaptation that drives progress, rather resistance and irrationality.

Borders, elitists and uniforms. I  Us  We  Them  Our lives are affected by discrimination, differentiation and all their adverse effects. So, Julie Mehretu paints the rythms of migration, Slim Aarons photographs the beautiful people in their fairy tale-like existence and Brigitte Niedermair shows how jewelry divides the world into the haves and have nots – even when you're naked. While sleek talks with Wilbert Das about Haute Couture and Franz Ackermann about his sleek exclusive paintings, Nawel develops the theme of the uniform and sums it all up with, "Why be an us, when you can be you?“ The sleek team.

What is reality? What is fantasy? Where does one stop and the other begin? Many of sleek´s fovourite artists and photographers have helped with our exploration of these illusive concepts. Phil Colin captures moments of pure and intimate reality, Christoph Steinmeier creates icons of perfection with his virtual beautys and Dirk Messner fulfills male fantisies with his surreal Daria. Talking to sleek are Nina Hagen, Christoph Steinmeyer and Yoshitomo Nara. So travel with us through this issue and see a holy cow, childhood memories and Kelly watching the stars. The sleek team.

Whether it´s female serial killers or an Infernal Tea Party with Paul Mc Carthy, the forces of destruction and creation is a polarity integral to life itself. So sleek dedicates this issue to these most fundamental of forces and poses some provocative questions: Can beauty be destroyed? Was Jesus creative? Photographer Robbie Fimano and Jonathan Meese´s come up with their own special  answers, while Boris Groys and Tobi Friedberg discuss broken hearts, graffiti and a unified Europe. The sleek team.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler" – says Einstein. What sleek has to say about decadence, opulence, purism and nudity is collected in this issue. From Mexico City´s monied class to the most luxurious salt; from sadomachism to minimal wall-boxes. Photographers and artist such as Henrike Stahl, John Armleder, Donald Judd and Julian Opie are included - and Tom Sachs and Jil Sander discuss her unique perspective on luxury and simplicity. The sleek team.

Public people being private, privacy in public spaces. These two aspects of our lifes can´t be separated from each other. So sleek concentrates on those fascinating zones where they mingle. Heji Shin captures Porn Star Tyra Misoux in truly private moments , Jan Welters puts us right into the most private of things – lovemaking – in public and and Nan Golden shows her simple, intensly intimate photography. Also, there's couture, to-die-for stockings, and Taryn Manning´s, Jonathan Murray´s and Elke Krystufek´s private secrets. The sleek team.

Our very first issue is dedicated  nothing more nor less than "lust". Lust for flesh by Ralph Mecke, lust for lost innocence by Holger Friederich, lust in the lap of luxury by Lars Pillmann. In his "Signs of Lust", photographer Joachim Baldauf sums it up quiet well, " Lust... has more than just a sexual connotation. It is the lust to live. The lust to be free. The lust of playing between sexes, with fashion. To be man here, to be woman there. To discover yourself and to act out variations of your own self..." The sleek team.