OVERVIEW

FULL NAME: Remington Ari Duchamp DOB & AGE: 27 December 1979 & 32 BIRTHPLACE: Belleville, Paris, France CURRENT RESIDENCE: East Village, NYC, USA OCCUPATION: Photographer SEXUALITY: Straight-identifying MARITAL STATUS: Widower CHILDREN: Mathieu (XX, b. 3 January 19XX).

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PB: Jay Baruchel CREDITS: Terry Richardson, Roman Coppola & Ned Hepburn JOURNAL & AIM ~duchamp & duchabag WRITING: 3rd person storybook. threading preference. est. LAYOUT: jayla with heavy edits

REMY DUCHAMP 

He was born in the haze of Gainsbourg’s later years, when the drunken icon could still be seen burning money on live TV and telling stories of all the things Brigitte Bardot could do with a champagne bottle, and maybe it was a sign. It was certainly an influence. The youngest and least loved child of French-Russian Jews who were, if not patently famous, overwhelmingly welcomed in the smoky music scenes of Paris, Remy grew up in a forest of famous French legs and under constant danger of the cigarette ashes that rained from above. Glamor made a powerful impression on him from a young age; his earliest memories are of fishnetted legs and smeared lipstick. Each of his five brothersmade to sing and play piano to please the artistic aspirations of their parents, but only Remy and the second-eldest showed more than a cursory interest in music. For his brother, it was the pull of arpeggios and chords, the sweet harmonies of C flats. For Remy, it was the knowledge that with music came audiences, and with audiences came groupies. While he had been out of country many times to visit relatives in Poland and Russia, Remy’s first glimpse of America came at age twelve when the entire clan of Duchamps had migrated, lured by cushy teaching jobs and a disinterest in the culture they had formerly helped shape. If there was such a thing as culture shock, Remy didn’t know about it. He adjusted so effortlessly into the New York nightlife his brothers bullied him for it, amused and annoyed that their runt brother somehow got invited to better parties than they ever managed to get into. To be fair, a whole lot of his rise was due to an inherent talent at sniffing out, buying, and selling drugs––the kind of thing you were born with rather than taught, and which certainly wasn’t exactly what most people would call a merit. Golovástik wasn’t his first but it was his only mildly successful attempt at music and even then it only lasted three years and managed to put out a single mixtape. Eventually, everyone involved got sick of Remy getting them all drunk and convincing them to take nudes. When Remy told his ex-bandmates that the pictures of their girlfriend’s tits had gotten him into NYU’s photography program, no one felt any better. At the end of his first year at NYU, Remy’s older brother committed suicide. In a pattern that would continue for much of his adult life, Remy reacted by dropping out of school, dropping his friends, and essentially dropping his life in order to sit in dark rooms for months at a time, smoking pot and watching foreign horror movies. When eventually wandered from his parent’s house, bleary eyed, to get a tattoo commemorating his brother, the sight of the city he loved so transformed by the specter of his brother’s suicide, raised in Remy a cloying repulsion. He couldn’t stand it. Within three weeks he’d collected everything of value to him, mainly his camera, and left New York. He spent several years wandering the U.S., doing drugs and taking pictures and somehow making connections. By always having a healthy amount of cocaine, by always being willing to humiliate himself, and by always just being fucking around, Remy started to impress the hardiest of party people on his return to New York. He fell in love with and married a model who introduced him to other models. He started dealing coke to his wife’s friends who soon became his friends, at the end of one his signature impromptu inebriated photoshoots he impressed someone enough to be hired as an assistant. The transition from his pornographic private shoots to fashion was seamless––fashion, in Remy’s hands, was just glorified porn. His simple, polished style and his shameless, overfriendly attitude began to earn him a proper place in the fashion industry instead of a spot by the back door; he became notorious for putting himself in the shoots, dressing his models up as himself and himself as the models. Maybe he became notorious for pressuring those same models into giving him mid-shoot handjobs, but no matter how many accusations piled up no one seemed to care. After the birth of his first and only son and his wife’s overdose four years later, Remy fell from the public eye for several years, seeking refuge, reportedly, in South Korean prostitutes. Whatever company he kept, he returned to New York with fresh models, fresh interns, and an unmitigated desire to plaster his photographs over the covers of prestigious magazines. In the 1990s he began to dabble in directing, sticking primarily to music videos with some forays into short films. He became more mainstream, shooting advertising campaigns for the likes of H&M and Aldo. Remy maintains a strong presence on the internet with both a tumblr for his photography and a much-searched for private tumblr. He enjoyed a boost to his internet notoriety due to an involvement with the popular tumblr “bonerparty” before its close in mid 2010. Remy continues to be a staple in fashion and celebrity photography, and if he cops a few feels everyone seems willing to let it slide.

works 

PHOTO BOOKS hysteric glamour ... 1998 son of jean ... 1999 feared by men desired by women ... 2000 too much ... 2001 the remy duchamp purple book ... 2004 remy duchamp ... 2004 remyworld ... 2004 manimal ... 2006 ftw ... 2006 kibosh ... 2006 rio, Cidade Maravilhosa ... 2007 lady gaga ... 2011 (NOT YET RELEASED)  FASHION british vogue (EDITORIAL) ... APR 2011 10 men magazine (EDITORIAL) ... JUN 2011 vogue japan (EDITORIAL) ... JUL 2011 w magazine (EDITORIAL) ... JUL 2011 ALDO (ADVERTISING) ... F/W 2011 PURPLE FASHION (COVER) ... F/W 2011 ...AND MORE.  DIRECTING the strokes — last nite ... 2001 the strokes — the modern age ... 2002 phantom planet — california ... 2002 the vines — get free ... 2002 the strokes — hard to explain ... 2002 the strokes — someday ... 2002 phantom planet — lonely day ... 2002 the strokes — 12:51 ... 2003 phoenix — everything is everything ... 2004 phoenix — long distance call ... 2006 ...AND MORE.  MISC golovástik (mixtape) ... 1988 wives wheels weapons ... 2008 bonerparty.tumblr.com ... 2009-2010