Live from LA

Long before he started interviewing international pop stars, Arman Naféei grew up navigating disparate worlds. He was born in Cologne, Germany to a family of Iranian intellectuals and was raised in rooms full of Persian poets and artists. As a boy, he’d soak up the rhythms of his immigrant parents’ language and culture and then lace up his cleats to play soccer with his friends.

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“I like to dibble and dabble,” the DJ-turned-curator, 39, says now from his breezy Hollywood Hills home. He wears a loose Cuban-collared shirt and, when not gesticulating, often combs his fingers through his dark hair. “Be the bridge, so to say.”

As a teenager, Naféei was drawn to turntables and soon started DJing local house parties, merging all the genres into sets. “Being eclectic is part of my DNA,” he says. By the early aughts he chased his dreams to London. A childhood friend helped him land a gig assisting Sir Norman Rosenthal, the curator of the Royal Academy of Arts. How could I apply my interest in music to the art world? he remembers musing at the time. “I’m always looking for that juxtaposition.”

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Naféei has spent his career blending cultural communities around the globe ever since. He got this start in London, blasting underground music from the inside of Gagosian, Pace, and other blue-chip galleries; and then in NYC, shepherding counterculture into the Boom Boom Room; and finally in LA, where, while curating music for the Chateau Marmont, he launched the experimental multimedia retail hub—his Kiosk-o-thèque—in an revamped newsstand out front. Though he works with buzzy tastemakers, Naféei has a refreshing populist streak, an instinct to blend the highbrow with the lowbrow.

At his golden home away from home, he collaborates on pop-ups with luxury brands, but the nature of Kiosk-o-thèque ensures the events stay free and open to the public, giving the entire project a transgressive edge. His podcast Are We On Air? features Naféei’s artistic heroes including Patti Smith and record producer Chris Blackwell. He sometimes records episodes from the newsstand itself, the chaos of the Sunset Strip whirling past.

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Even with all the energy behind his projects, Naféei understands that surviving in the fickle culture industry is itself a lifetime balancing act. Chasing the zeitgeist while remaining true to authentic interests can feel like dancing along a knife’s edge, especially in LA. The future of the stall housing the newsstand is up in the air, but Naféei doesn’t seem too worried. “They want to build a billboard,” he says, stroking his mustache. “Who knows how long until they tear it down, but we have it till then.” But like its creator, the Kiosk-o-thèque isn’t tethered to one place—its future is global, with plans for NYC, Paris, St. Moritz, Capri, London, Mexico City, and beyond.