The LA-based photographer and long-time Lana Del Rey collaborator worked with artist and model Kaiman Kazazian to produce this haunting photo series
If you got lucky recently you may have caught a glimpse of Neil Krug’s psychedelic visions on billboards in and around cities in the UK. Like portals from the grey streets into the high-key colour of a desert dreamscape, Phantom: Stage One offered passersby a brief, unexpected encounter with another world.
The Kansas-born, Los Angeles-based photographer, now one of the most sought-after creators of album artwork, is responsible for some of the most captivating record sleeves of recent years. Collaborating with the likes of Bonobo, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Tame Impala, Krug also shot the “soft-core horror” cover of Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence. His pairing with Del Rey is perfect, given both artists’ work seems haunted, at times, by the spectre of old-Hollywood B movies and a vision of bygone Southern California.
Having first learned about Krug when she discovered his debut publication – a stunning monograph of exploitation movie-inspired portraits called Pulp Art Book – the pair almost didn’t meet due to a misunderstanding. When she was given Krug’s book as a gift, Del Rey was led to believe that he was deceased. “In that exchange the friend said something to the effect of, ‘I think you’ll love this, the artist behind these works is dead,’” Krug explains. After discovering that he was still inhabiting this mortal coil, Krug and Del Rey have worked together extensively, finding a great deal of mutual inspiration in one another’s work. Krug tells us, “Her music exists in its own lane and the imagery needs to reflect that as well.”
This latest work, appearing on billboards across the UK as part of the Your Space Or Mine project, depicts a tribe of imaginary women named the Clémenti Oiseaux, who haunt an otherworldly, psychedelic, desert landscape. Infused with Valley of the Dolls-style glamour and an edge of Picnic At Hanging Rock horror, Phantom is inspired by one of Krug’s recurring dreams.
The series is an ongoing collaboration with the artist, illustrator, and model Kaiman Kazazian, who plays the role of each of the mysterious figure in the Clémenti Oiseaux. “They’re fucking out there, in the middle of the desert,” she tells Dazed. “And they’re on a journey.” Kazazian also envisions the characters captured in a loaded, suspenseful moment. “Right before something big and beautiful comes, there’s the chaos,” she explains. “That’s where they are.”
Born in Texas, Kazazian was also drawn inexorably to the golden light of the West Coast. Like Krug, she felt the irresistible pull of L.A.’s perpetual summer. “I fell in love with Los Angeles and all of the grimy things covered up in glitter,” she tells Dazed. “The stark contrast of its sunny days and broken dreams.”
Much of her illustration work features the compelling character Pollyana Cowgirl, an alter ego through which Kazazian expresses her own unique aesthetic and who represents her creator’s “innermost facets”. She explains, “Pollyana Cowgirl is the vulnerable superhero that I created in my mind during a paradigm shift in my young adult life… (she) wears her heart on her sleeve and she loves selflessly, but those are her superpowers, not her weaknesses.”
As their latest compelling collaboration, Phantom speaks of the pair’s rich compendium of shared interests and references, including the likes of Antonioni and Fellini, Pasolini’s Teorema, the dark underbelly of L.A., Sylvia Plath, Eve Babitz, the strange fascination of Marilyn Monroe, and The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire.
Above, take a look through the gallery at Phantom: Stage One, including some exclusive images shared with Dazed. Below, we talk to Neil Krug and Kaiman Kazazian about how Mick Jagger was inadvertently instrumental in Krug’s move to Los Angeles, working with Lana Del Rey, and seeing their dreamy images dominating the UK streets.
Could you tell us where this project came from? What kind of conversations and obsessions did it spring from?
Neil Krug: With Phantom, I remember the desire to see louder imagery with bodies, sweat, sun, and a kind of unexplained chaos. For the most part, all my shoots form as little fragmented ideas that percolate over time; the ideas then settle and I start to picture scenes. Around the same time, I experienced a few reoccurring dreams involving a group of women congregating near a volcano with a kind of Joseph Wright of Derby-esque blazing sky. It was shortly thereafter when I started talking to Kaiman about how best to attack this project.
Kaiman Kazazian: Neil really spearheaded the conception of this project and brought it to me, asking if I wanted to be involved. I love any excuse to get to work together. There weren’t any other specific visual references that we honed in on for this one. Sometimes, for other projects, there will be a still from a rare ’60s film that we fixate on, which is then the catalyst for inspiration... But Phantom really started off uniquely on its own.
When I started pulling clothing for the different characters we got more cerebral on the references. By then, it was more of ‘this moment has such an effortlessness, what’s making it that way?’ Understanding the understated.
How integral has moving to Los Angeles been to your practice and how has it influenced both your work?
Neil Krug: The body of work I’ve produced wouldn’t exist had I not moved to Los Angeles a decade ago. Spending time here in California and exploring everything the landscape has to offer has been greatly beneficial to how I go about making projects.
Funnily, in a roundabout way, Mick Jagger had a great deal of influence on my decision to live in LA full time. A little over ten years ago, Mr Jagger was working on a project at the Paramount lot here in Los Angeles. His management requested I come to the set to photograph Mick quickly while he was in town. At the time I didn’t live in Los Angeles, and I’ll never forget the call I received from my then rep, Wendy, saying, ‘Hon, if you wanna play with the big boys, you have to live here.’ To my recollection, Mick’s management assumed I lived in LA since my portfolio at the time was even more ‘sunny’ than it is now. They needed someone local due to limited time and availability. It was shortly after that missed opportunity that I moved to Los Angeles to live full time.
Kaiman Kazazian: I had never really planned on moving to LA. It just sort of happened on a whim. I was actually trying to move to NYC and a friend at the time lured me to the West Coast first. I fell in love with Los Angeles and all of the grimy things covered up in glitter – the stark contrast of its sunny days and broken dreams. If it’s influenced me in any way, it’s that it changed the entire course of my life.
“It’s a feeling that stems from years of consuming films and records made in California from the ’60s and ’70s... I believe in the future and enjoy the technology around me, but find a huge part of my taste was formed by those early inspirations” – Neil Krug
How does your collaborative process work? How did you develop Phantom?
Neil Krug: For us, the collaboration is strongest in the pre-shoot/idea-generation phase and again toward the end, in the edit, when we can explore everything. The actual shoot itself is always brutal for both of us and not the most fun while we’re on location. We’re always racing against the sun and our location choices are often difficult to move about in.
I try to maintain a sense of zen while I’m shooting, like a runner during a marathon, and to keep the pace reasonable for Kaiman and I. Both of us have cancelled shoots several times in years past because it takes all our energy and momentum to want to make the imagery. If we’re both not there spiritually and physically, we might as well not even attempt it. The project is ongoing and our next batch of imagery is taking the established themes into new situations. We’re excited to start releasing the next phase throughout this year.
Kaiman Kazazian: I think our collaboration is strong in the middle, too! I do have mini meltdowns when we are literally out in the middle of fucking nowhere; when the sun’s high and I’m running around barefoot on tiny shards of rocks... But Neil really does hold it down for me. When we get into a groove it can be transcendent. It’s real teamwork.
Who would you each love to work with if you could collaborate with anyone (dead or alive)?
Neil Krug: Buster Keaton. Hendrix.
Kaiman Kazazian: Antonioni or Fellini. Can’t decide. Ideally both.
Please could you tell us about the Clémenti Oiseaux and the world they inhabit?
Kaiman Kazazian: I’m going to let Neil’s answer take this one because I have my own emotional ties to the Clémenti Oiseaux and I get into that a little later…
Neil Krug: The Clémenti Oiseaux is a made-up title I came up with to name the body politic. This imaginary group concept has been helpful for Kaiman and me when we’re planning the scenes and how best to arrange the characters. The world they inhabit is this world, it’s just showcasing their experience.
What do you think your shared cultural reference points are? What kinds of movies/music/art do you both love?
Kaiman Kazazian: Neil and I do this thing we call ‘film school’. It’s an ongoing list of films to watch and we mark them off one by one. Either we have to find them at our local indie rental house, Videotheque, or find copies on eBay if we can’t stream them anywhere. There are standouts in movies and music that we both adore, like The Killing of a Chinese Bookie or In The Rain by The Dramatics.
Even though Neil and I have so many similar interests, I like the differences just as much. He loves some ’80s films and cartoons that I missed because I hadn’t been born yet, and I grew up on some early 2000s kitschy stuff that he totally missed out on. But both of those places hold major influences for us creatively.
Neil Krug: We’re both fans of Pasolini’s Teorema, which was an inspiration when the project was in its early formative phase. I’ve been editing listening to Soft Machine and Francois de Roubaix for the last few months and it’s been enjoyable. My influences have always been all over the place and not consistent with what you might assume when looking at the imagery.
It’s incredible to see your vividly colourful images looming so large on the currently very gloomy streets of the UK. How do you think the contrast of the setting will add an extra dimension to the images (and vice versa)?
Neil Krug: I love seeing Phantom live in this incredible way. I mean, we have actually had conversations about wanting the work to be on the street, living and breathing amongst people. And here we are. It’s amazing. I think the contrast between the grey skies and the work is beautiful. I hope that the people living and working amongst them experience a little bit of escapism from it all. I wish we could be there to see it ourselves.
I’ve been told by a few peers of mine from London that the contrast is dramatic, which is all that I could ever hope for. The imagery comes from dreams, with no rules, and is a complete expression. I hope it has made people smile.
“I think this project is so beautiful because don’t we all have those moments? Right before something big and beautiful comes there’s the chaos” – Kaiman Kazazian
Neil, you’ve spoken about an elusive idea of bygone Southern California as a place that no longer exists but is present in your work. Could you share with us what that vanished world feels/looks like to you? And how your idea of it was formed?
Neil Krug: It’s not a scientific view by any means, but more a feeling that stems from years of consuming films and records made in California from the ’60s and ’70s. As a teenager, I remember feeling particularly connected to films like The Trip, and the itching desire to be a part of that universe in some sort of capacity. Not in some nostalgic-freakout-trip way, but in this imaginary idealism that was permeating all the media of that era. I don’t think such a thing exists here in Southern California anymore, so every once in a while I feel that muse return for some of my colour choices or for the subject matter I attempt in my personal work. I believe in the future and enjoy the technology around me, but find a huge part of my taste was formed by those early inspirations.
Neil, how would you define the overarching aesthetic of your work? What are the recurring themes?
Neil Krug: I think it’s too early to say, as I’ve had so many things I want to explore visually. There doesn’t seem to be a point in permanently boxing myself in.
Could you tell us about the misunderstanding surrounding your first encounter with Lana Del Rey? And what do you think it is about Pulp Art Book that suggests its maker may be deceased?
Neil Krug: I’ll be answering this question for the rest of my life, but it’s all good since I’m alive to tell the tale. From what I’ve been told, Lana was given my first monograph Pulp Art Book by a friend as a kind of inspirational-mood gift, and in that exchange the friend said something to the effect of, ‘I think you’ll love this, the artist behind these works is dead.’ The end. It’s possible that the lo-fi aesthetic of that book could suggest whoever was responsible must be ancient now but, to me, it’s just a book of exploitation-inspired images shot on film.
In hindsight, there might be a symbolic truth to that story. Towards the end of 2013, I was getting divorced and going through a sort of death of the spirit. It was shortly thereafter, in 2014, when I met Lana and we started working together that my life began to feel positive again. I remember 2014 as a year of smiles and intense creative inspiration and I think a lot can be said for that collaboration happening at the time that it did. I am eternally grateful. Timing is everything.
Your collaboration with Lana Del Rey is so fitting. Where do you see your work overlapping thematically? What are your shared reference points?
Neil Krug: Thank you. She and I don’t share a great deal of similar references, but what is shared is the desire to create something great that exists in its own lane. Her music exists in its own lane and the imagery needs to reflect that as well.
When you collaborated with LDR on the cover for Ultraviolence, what were the kind of inspirations you drew from?
Neil Krug: Quite a few things were floating around creatively for that record, but what we landed on was this imaginary film-in-stills kind of approach. It wasn’t a rigorous approach in the direction, but more of an atmospheric thing that presented itself during all the days we would be shooting – a kind of soft-core horror aesthetic.
I remember hearing whispers from people who thought what we were making looked ‘too druggy’, but it never felt that way to me, and it still doesn’t. It feels like the appropriate imagery for that collection of songs. And I’ve heard from the Lana fanbase several times over the years that that imagery is their favourite, so it must have gotten the job done.
Kaiman, you are a total polymath. Please could you tell us about your work and your practice as an artist, model, and illustrator?
Kaiman Kazazian: Thank you! Yes! I wear many hats all at once. Quite literally for Phantom – except it’s wigs.
My work as an artist has been purely emotional up until recently. There’s something about LA that forces you to start looking at yourself as a business. I’m still not quite sure how this resonates with me but I’m not in a rush to have all the answers immediately either. My brain can’t help but create projects with multiple layers. I see things in many moving parts, spread across different mediums. I’m trying to hone in on that.
“I love the dark side of the 1960s – the underbelly of L.A., Sylvia Plath, Eve Babitz, the strange fascination of Marilyn Monroe, Monica Vitti, Ed Ruscha, and Rene Ricard. At times, The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire has been my bible” – Kaiman Kazazian
Who’s Pollyana Cowgirl and how did she come to be?
Kaiman Kazazian: Pollyana Cowgirl is the vulnerable superhero that I created in my mind during a paradigm shift in my young adult life. I had just gotten out of a long relationship, subletting in Silverlake and spending my last ten dollars on a pack of Parliament Lights.
Pollyana Cowgirl wears her heart on her sleeve and she loves selflessly, but those are her superpowers, not her weaknesses. She represents all of the innermost facets of myself.
I was drawing women in lingerie as a child, so my visual influence behind Pollyana Cowgirl has always been there. Probably has something to do with Pretty Woman being my favourite movie when I was like seven years old.
Could you tell us about some of the characters who inhabit Phantom? And what do they represent?
Kaiman Kazazian: These women... they’re fucking out there, in the middle of the desert. And they’re on a journey.
I think this project is so beautiful because don’t we all have those moments? Right before something big and beautiful comes there’s the chaos. That’s where they are. Swarming in the centre of that lonely heightened place. And it’s going to come down from there because it always does. It will get quiet and they will disperse. Maybe they’ll walk back home, or maybe they’ll walk away and never look back.
When you accidentally drop a wine glass, the moment it hits the ground and shatters into a bunch of tiny pieces... that’s the Clémenti Oiseaux to me.
How did you develop the figures you play in the series? They seem like unique and fully-formed individuals.
Kaiman Kazazian: Thank you! For Phantom specifically, I developed them visually first. When pulling together the wardrobe for these women, I’m more so trying to create a cohesive visual scape with the colours and shapes.
Up until we find our location, the performance is not premeditated. Once we find our mountainside or cave, then the elements play a part in it too. I align emotions or feelings with different costumes or colours. Sometimes I even simply show how I’m truly feeling in those moments amongst the terrain. Strong, vulnerable, curious, childlike, lost, in control, out of control, commanding the chaos – pick your goods.
How would you characterise your personal style and the aesthetic of your work? Who are your main inspirations?
Kaiman Kazazian: I love the dark side of the 1960s – the underbelly of LA., Sylvia Plath, Eve Babitz, the strange fascination of Marilyn Monroe, Monica Vitti, Ed Ruscha, and Rene Ricard. At times, The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire has been my bible. Movies like Fat Girl by Catherine Breillat and Daisies by Věra Chytilová were shown to me by important women in my life and left major impressions on me. Growing up watching Sailor Moon, and still watching Sailor Moon. Those things.
As far as characterising my personal style, I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere and it’s taken me up until recently to realise that’s a strength, not a weakness.
In what ways do you nourish yourself creatively? Are there any rituals in your daily life that help you in this way?
Kaiman Kazazian: Writing for the sake of emotional release – messy scribbles, emo poems, recounts of dreams, what have you. Sometimes it takes different forms and can inspire drawings, narratives, or scenes. I don’t do it enough recently, but if I’m writing regularly it can create a pathway for me to think clearly and vividly.
Neil Krug and Kaiman Kazazian’s Phantom: Stage One appeared on billboards across the UK as part of the Your Space Or Mine project by the #BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s family of JACK, JACK ARTS and DIABOLICAL