"Uncopped Mysteries"
A TOP SECRET giveaway for a COOL steel chair + ENIGMATIC FRACTAL JAWNS + more "unbeatably elusive" recon
FIRST OFF: Thank u & congratulations to the SpyFriends who mobbed the f**k up and copped our limited-edition “Beautiful Music” tee earlier this week. Everybody’s order will be in the mail by the end of tomorrow!
Now: please present yr aura to the BBSP VIBE-SCANNER to confirm yr Top $ecret credentials & receive today’s Cla$$ified-tier intelligence…
Yr aura is rich, multilayered, complex and on point, lover. Welcome to the Spyplane Inner $anctum…
Today we are rolling out a brand-new Blackbird Spyplane feature — it’s a way for us to salute EXTREMELY ELUSIVE and/or ENIGMATIC & TANTALIZING GEMS that we would love to cop but HAVEN’T TRACKED DOWN … It’s a way for us to share grail quests, a.k.a. “the Spyplane’s saved searches” … and — since we have the no. 1 readership across all media for “unbeatable crowd wisdom” — it’s a way to tap the ERUDITE SPYPLANE BRAIN HIVE for ANSWERS and hear about YOUR own vexing hunts…
This new feature is called “UNCOPPED MYSTERIES,” and we R launching it with a STUNNER: The vibey ‘90s-era apparel brand “Fractal Generation,” which we’ve had on our radar for a minute but, until yesterday, knew very little about…
If you’ve stumbled on a jawn associated with Fractal Generation before, it’s probably this very SICK and HIGHLY COVETED IF-YOU-KNOW-YOU-KNOW ‘92 MACWORLD BOSTON tee — spotting this during some Apple-merch deep dives is how we got started on this path in the first place, and it doesn’t feel like a stretch to call the shirt the coolest thing to ever come out of Boston ; )
There’s one of these available right now in XL asking an “uncoppable” $250 (!) at a Missouri vintage store. [UPDATE 9:06 a.m.: WOW one of you bought it — GO OFF, SPLASH-LORD!!] So what’s the deal with this rare, bizarre tee?? There is a CLUE in the fine print below the graphic: the image is called “Dragon Tree,” credited to an artist named Robert Azank and copyrighted 1990…
When U search Azank’s name u discover a bunch of other fractal jawns he designed — and whereas the Macworld tee was printed on a Fruit of the Loom blank, there are several others with their own branded “FRACTAL GENERATION” tags …
So what was Fractal Generation, and who is Robert Azank?? The Google results were frustratingly slim…
INTRIGUINGLY, though, there is a Buenos Aires-born artist named Roberto Azank … “the grandson of an oil canvas artist and the son of a master embroidery designer,” according to his website. GREAT HERITAGE! This Azank moved to the U.S. in 1979, “where experimentation with various artistic forms and media led to his decision to pursue a career in the arts. As he continued to hone his craft, Azank began painting brightly colored abstract works” — like FRACTALS, maybe ??
The end of Roberto’s bio made this question seem moot — “in 1994 Azank moved to New York’s Catskill Mountains and found in his still life and flowers works the definitive style for which he is known.”
Hmm… no mention ANYWHERE on his site of COOL FRACTALS… The timeline seemed WRONG. Probably just a different dude with a vexingly similar name… 😞
BUT HOLD UP !! Peep the tee above left, which sold for $22 last year — this one is commemorative merchandise for a 1993 conference of the National Council of Mathematics Teachers…
And when we looked at the list of past exhibitions on Roberto Azank’s website, CHECK what we found from 1993 !!
Could this be a coincidence?? Did Roberto Azank once make FIRE FRACTAL JAWNS under the name Robert — then LEAVE THEM BEHIND??
Yesterday I sent Roberto Azank an email telling him his current work is beautiful and asking if he was once a fractal wizard. He quickly wrote back …
“Thanks for reaching out!” Roberto replied. “Yeah, that was me... had a great time with those fractals, made some noise with t-shirts and posters — good times!”
O damn !! He went on to explain that “Dragon Tree” was “a true fractal in the old-school sense, straight Mandelbrot set spinoffs. Back in the day I generated that baby with an AST computer, whose hard drive had 40 mg capacity! It took 24-48 hours to generate a fractal at 640x480 resolution, amazing!”
Truly !!
So was Fractal Generation his company, or did they just license his work? “It was my company,” Roberto said. “We printed posters and t-shirts that were sold in many university shops” — this explained why one of the Fractal Generation tees I’ve seen has an M.I.T. logo on the sleeve.
Also, he added, “we made several T-shirts for the Macworld conventions back in the day.” THESE WE GOTTA SEE! “They were also featured as the ‘official’ t-shirt of the National Convention of Teachers of Math, several times. One time in the Nationals in Nashville, where my t-shirt was the official thing, I met Mr. Mandelbrot himself, who was lecturing with some of his colleagues. We had spirited discussions about the nature of fractals as art, their validity as such, etc. It was wild and wonderful.”
Mystery solved… and yet a FRACTAL GENERATION tee remains UNCOPPED by us. A few sold last year on Depop, Grailed and Etsy for between like $18 and $55, so hopefully it’s only a matter of time till more heaters resurface… Roberto very kindly told me he would be down to mail me a poster. Fingers crossed!
Meanwhile, maybe u already own a Fractal Generation jawn… OR Maybe u have another “uncopped mystery” entirely to submit… LET US KNOW !
You can see Roberto’s current, non-fractal-based work on Instagram, here.
NEXT UP:
Every now and then readers ask us questions such as “Is there a place for jewelry within a GORP lifestyle?” — @nice_haha and, more open-endedly, “What about jewelry?” — @jaybirdsteele …
I am personally not a jewelryman but ERIN has been known to rock a PHAT BAUBLE, and O baby did she just find one SO PHAT that I’M TEMPTED TO BORROW IT AND ROCK IT ON A JACKET WHILE PRETENDING MY NAME IS “EONAH”!!
Here’s how it went DOWN. Erin was intrigued by 2 jawns owned by desert-art icon Georgia O’Keeffe, known to rock sick SOUTHWESTERN GORP, and cranky-NYC-literary icon Fran Lebowitz — specifically their popping pieces of ALEXANDER CALDER jewelry, as seen above left pinned to O’Keeffe’s wrap-dress and below right on Lebowitz in cufflink form in Martin Scorsese’s Pretend It’s a City …
Erin wondered if it was possible to cop an original Calder joint herself. Since he is a towering hero of 20th century modern art, the answer is, “Kinda, at auction, for a lot of money, so no, not really.”
But since Erin is an “unbeatable copilot” she did not stop there. NO!