LA Freeway

A SPECIAL WAY OF BEING ALIVE

London-based photographer Immo Klink spent several years portraying people on the freeways of Los Angeles, capturing the myths, dreams, and realities of a city shaped by constant movement. We present a selection of female protagonists from the series.

Text: Photos: Immo Klink

Photography

"The freeway experience… is the only secular communion Los Angeles has. Mere driving on the freeway is in no way the same as participating in it. Anyone can “drive” on the freeway, and many people with no vocation for it do, hesitating here and resisting there, losing the rhythm of the lane change, thinking about where they came from and where they are going.

Actual participants think only about where they are. Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway. The mind goes clean."

— Joan Didion, The White Album (1976)

"The freeways become a special way of being alive … the extreme concentration required in Los Angeles seems to bring on a state of heightened awareness that some locals find mystical."

— Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, 1971

Favorite fantasies? “So many of them dreamed about having Porsches or Mark IV’s,” Ballance remembered. “They dream about cars, man! I said to one, ‘Can I name you Miss Pistonhead of 1972?’ They even mention colors. One said she wanted a long Mercedes limousine. asked, what color, and she said,. ‘Magenta.’”

— „Ode to the Freeway“, von Steven V. Roberts, erschienen in der New York Times (1973)

Immo Klink works for brands such as Levi’s and international media outlets including The New York Times Magazine, AnOther Magazine, Dazed & Confused, i-D Magazine, SZ-Magazin, and ZEITmagazin. His work has been exhibited at renowned art institutions worldwide. Born in Germany in 1972, he studied law and is also active as a political activist.

Photographer of the Month: Immo Klink

Text: Paula Pankarter

Fashion meets activism! The London photographer Immo Klink combines fashion photography with a critique of capitalism and masters this balancing act with authentic photographs that play with commercial imagery. In the past, Klink has photographed for Levi's, Benetton and The New Yorker, among others. In our Beauty Issue we show his photo series Mayday at Mayfair, which documents how on May 1, 2019, London's luxury boutiques barricaded their shop windows because of announced riots by opponents of capitalism. A conversation about consumerism, fashion, and beauty.

Fashion Art Photography Design

Mr. Kronthaler

Text: Antje Mayer-Salvi, Fotos: Andreas Kronthaler

The roots of fashion designer Andreas Kronthaler, husband of Vivienne Westwood, are in the Tyrolean Zillertal valley. We could have asked him what it was like to have tea with Prince Charles. But we didn’t. Instead, we had a chat about his grandmother’s blueberry patties and the fur coats of his old aunt in Graz. This interview was written in the summer of 2022; Vivienne Westwood has since passed away. We have not changed it and have left it as it was held. We send our heartfelt condolences to the Westwood and Kronthaler family.

Fashion Crafts Social Art

The Astrophysicist

Text: David Meran, Fotos: Katrin Binner, Josef Köröcz, Tobias Meran

We humans are nothing but stardust and, like the Earth, we like to spin in circles. What does a roundabout have in common with the universe and why is the Milky Way provincial? We spoke with the German astrophysicist, FAZ editor, and philosopher Sibylle Anderl.

The Soap&Skin

Text: Eva Holzinger, Fotos: Xenia Snapiro, Styling: Sarah Zalud-Bzoch

The musician Anja Plaschg, known as Soap & Skin

"When I was a child, I toyed with dirt. I killed the slugs, I bored with a bough in their spiracle.” For almost 15 years, the exceptional Austrian artist SOAP&SKIN has been singing about death and pain, about nature and healing. Her voice pierces into us and cuts off our air, only to let us breathe better afterwards. The lyrics to Spiracle read differently when you know that 30-year-old Anja Plaschg grew up on a pig-fattening farm in a Styrian village with 200 inhabitants. A conversation about sugar-cube witches, talking trees, and how impressive and depressing rural life can be.

Music Art