Olivier Zahm worked as an art critic for Artforum, Flash Art, Art Press and Texte Zur Kunst during the 1980s and early 1990s. He is a renowned curator and has worked with over 150 exhibitions of contemporary art throughout the world, including institutions like PS1, MoMA, and Centre Pompidou. In 1992, he founded Purple Prose magazine (1992 - 1998) with Elein Fleiss, and the publication has created spin-offs like Purple Fiction (1992 - 1998), Purple Sexe (1998 - 2001), Purple magazine (1998 - 2003), Purple Journal (2004 - present), Purple Fashion (1995 - 1998, 2004 - present), and Purple Books, a publishing house . The "realistic", sometimes dubbed "anti-fashion"-, aesthetics of Purple was a reaction against the glamour of the 80’s, and can be linked with the global counterculture of that time, with the work of Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Mario Sorrenti.
Since 2004, Zahm is editor in chief of Purple Fashion, a biannual magazine attempting to bridge the worlds of art and fashion. Zahm and Fleiss also run the Paris-based think tank Purple Institute, an art direction society and consulting company aimed at creating links between the art world and industry. He has also art directed the Spring 2007 Yves Saint Laurent Homme campaign.
OLIVIER ZAHM, By KARIN NELSON
WHAT I’M WEARING NOW An Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket and ostrich boots, American Apparel jeans and a vintage Christian Dior shirt. I buy a lot of these T-shirts from Eleven on Elizabeth Street. They feel sweet against the skin. My watch is a Seiko from the ’80s. It looks like a gold Rolex, which I can’t afford yet. The glasses are Ray-Ban. I have five pairs, all in different shades of amber. I love amber. It’s a beautiful color for men. The only perfume I wear is because of its amber color — Azzaro, which is an old cheap cologne for workers.
STYLE CREDO To me, the best time for men was in the ’70s. I would love to look like Polanski or Jack Nicholson back then, the way they wore their jeans with just a shirt, a good watch, glasses and a nice white jacket. It was simple, but really sexy. At the beginning of this decade all the men got very glamorous. They started buying a lot of clothes. Me, I don’t like it. When you notice clothing on a man, I find it suspicious.
ON INSPIRATION Nothing is more inspiring than love and true sexuality. People say my magazine is very provocative or transgressive. Not at all. If there is nudity and sex, it is not to provoke, it is to show the beauty and love.
