Issue #45 – Summer 2024: “The Opioid Crisis Lookbook”

Welcome to the darkest 032c issue ever. Entitled “The Opioid Crisis Lookbook,” Issue #45 serves the servants and exalts filth and longevity. The dossier by DASHA ZAHAROVA and DUSTIN CAUCHI, the two editors behind the magazine OCL, provide us with a historic and aesthetic study of America’s drug epidemic while artist Tobias Spichtig follows them through the streets of Berlin. In conversation with Cassidy George, the couple reveals why they do creative consulting for cults and share theory and literature by Antonin Artaud and Cookie Mueller.

Yet, there is also light. An otherworldly one emanates from Petra Collins and Helena Tejedor’s shoot of ROSALÍA, which is rhetorically embellished with nonfiction by Heather McCalden. Harmony Korine/EDGLRD lets THE WEEKND motorcycle in a GTA-esque, computer-generated world of ghosts, and ABEL TESFAYE chats with his younger self in the form of custom-programmed ChatGPT mediated by Ross Scarano. VARG²™ welcomes Shane Anderson into his world of wolves while Raphael Bliss captures the Swedish producer in a swamp at night. LUKA SABBAT tells Claire Koron Elat why he has a guillotine at his dinner table and Nicolas Wagner and Ras Bartram capture the existentialist in one of his hometowns, Paris. Also in the French capital, KATE UPTON slurps margaritas in bed with Sebastián Faena and Ras Bartram. The photographer-stylist duo also visits a farm where LOLI BAHIA shows us what the world wants. Phillip Pyle ventures into the cavities of artist MIRE LEE’s ugliness, formlessness, and stupidity, and BRYAN JOHNSON tells Dagmar Von Taube and Sven Michaelsen how to stay alive forever with approximately 100 pills a day. Hendrik Schneider and Tim Heyduck explore the identity of chrome, JENS BALZER uncovers the necessity of cultural appropriation together with Shane Anderson, and Max von Gumppenberg was seen backstage taking shots at our first runway show in Paris by MARIA KOCH. 

Plus: The X-files introduce the 032c universe featuring the brutally honest band BAR ITALIA, Brutalist BLACKHAINE, Bling-bling-CEO BABYXSOSA, Spam Curator PAUL HAMELINE, Anxiety Critic ISABELLE GRAW, Wax Figurine Analyst ALLEN JONES, Moodboard Rejecter ROK HWANG, School Runaway SEAN DELEAR, and Streetwear Godfather JUN TAKAHASHI. As always, the Berlin Review rounds out the issue with our favorite books of the season.