Category: Chrono

3. Rei Kawakubo || War / Peace – Today’s Black / Tomorrow’s Dream

The Humble Fabulist3 Comments

“Personally, I don’t care about function at all. . . . When I hear ‘where could you wear that?’
or ‘it’s not very wearable,’ or ‘who would wear that?’ to me it’s just a sign that someone
missed the point.” – Rei Kawakubo

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And yet…

Not only they are wearable, some even feature the ultimate practicality: pockets! How’s that for wearability, dear missing-the-point critics!

Views from Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between @ The Met Fifth Avenue continue with Life / Loss – Space / Curve coming up next.

August 6th, 2017

2. Rei Kawakubo || Then / Now – Self / Other

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

Of all her divisive designs on view, perhaps the most alienating one was the black overall lace coat from the ”Ceremony of Separation” line. Comments from fellow visitors ranged from politely dismissive to downright ironic – totally missing the poetry behind the layers of pleats and ribbons and children’s dresses sewn together into a strong emotional statement: accepting loss as part of life and finding comfort in traditions and rituals.

The mood automatically lightened up with these East-meets-West geometric designs from ”Cubisme” or the padded wool tartans from the ”Inside Decoration” collection.

A wise lady to her friend, on the Male / Female ”Persona” jackets: ”It’s all sleeves… so that people don’t get too close to you!”
Views from Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between @ The Met Fifth Avenue continue with War / Peace coming up next.

August 6th, 2017

1. Rei Kawakubo || Fashion / Not Fashion – Art / Not Art

The Humble Fabulist7 Comments

Agree or disagree, this is a designer whose body of work requires you take sides: either you like it or you don’t, it’s as simple as that. As for me, a long time admirer of her revolutionary spirit, seeing her designs displayed as works of art in a seamless narrative against a stark white backdrop, brought about two observations:

  • If money were no object, I would be a CdG moving ad.
  • If, in a different life, I were a designer, these would have been my signature works (by these I mean the entire archive, representative pieces from which were on view in Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, through September 4, 2017 at The Met).

So now that all is said and done and the spotlight has been shifted to the infinitely more Instagrammable New York Fashion Week and back onto the chic and glam fashion crowd about town, let’s take another look at Rei Kawakubo’s perfectly imperfect, beautifully ugly, alienatingly inventive, brilliantly unique designs; her Art of the In-Between: 

Note from the guide: <<Mu (emptiness) is suggested through the architectural leitmotif of the circle, which in Zen Buddhism symbolizes the void, and ma (space) is evoked through the inter – play of structural forms. Ma expresses void as well as volume, a thing with and without shape — not defined by concrete boundaries. Amplified by the stark whiteness of the gallery surfaces, the visual effect is one of both absence and presence.>>

More views from Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between @ The Met Fifth Avenue, coming up.

August 6th, 2017

Less is More @ MoMA [permanent collection, part 12]

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

The arrangement of objects on the floor (second image) is a sculpture by Richard Serra: Cutting Device: Base Plate Measure, 1969.

The artist took rolled lead sheets, wood beams, marble slabs, and steel piping, and then used a saw to slice them through. The objects were then arranged on the floor as they appeared directly after having been cut.

{…}

The row of framed prints on the wall show VALIE EXPORT, photographed by Peter Hassmann for her signature work Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969.

<<This series of screenprints relates to a performance in which EXPORT reportedly walked into an experimental art-film house in Munich wearing crotchless trousers and a tight leather jacket, with her hair teased wildly, and roamed through the rows of seated spectators, her exposed genitalia level with their faces. Challenging the public to engage with a “real woman” instead of with images on a screen, she illustrated her notion of “expanded cinema,” in which the artist’s body activates the live context of watching. EXPORT’s defiant feminist action was memorialized in a picture taken the following year by the photographer Peter Hassmann in Vienna. EXPORT had the image, in which she holds a machine gun, screenprinted in a large edition and fly-posted it in public squares and on the street.>>

MoMA, From the Collection, 1960 – 1969.

January 30th, 2017

Alex Katz @ MoMA [permanent collection, part 11]

The Humble Fabulist3 Comments

A stylish gentleman Mr. Katz is in his business suit and hat – the clean, sleek lines of his self-portrait devoid of all superfluous accentuating his steady, direct gaze.

Passing, 1962-63. Oil on canvas || Αlex Katz

<<Ambitious, elegant, impersonal, large in scale, and simultaneously timeless and reflective of its time—these, according to Katz, are the qualities of “high style” in painting, and they are also the qualities of many of his own works.>>

MoMA, views form the Permanent Collection

January 30th, 2017

So… is this art? @ MoMA [permanent collection, part 10]

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

Today’s composition of choice comprises some well known buildings partly glowing in the afternoon sun, paired with some of Marcel Duchamp’s famous ”readymades”. With all due respect to his undeniable contribution to the world of art, if I sign my compositions and designate them as artworks does that make me an artist?

<<Beginning in 1913 Duchamp challenged accepted artistic standards by selecting mass-produced, functional objects from everyday life and designating them as works of art. These sculptures, which he called “readymades,” were aimed at subverting traditional notions of skill, uniqueness, and beauty, boldly declaring that an artist could create simply by making choices. >>

MoMA, From the Collection, 1960 – 1969.

January 30th, 2017