The Fábrica Gallery holds the latest exhibition dedicated to the American photographer Francesca Woodman. Upon the 30th Anniversary of her death, the hall displays the work of the Artist with a selections of 20 photographs, half of which are unedited. Until the 21st January, Madrid host a mixture of key works which outline the path of Woodman, from her first photographer, “Autorretrato a los 13”, taken in 1972 to her last work in New York.
Too young, the hasty disappearance of Woodman, over time has converted her into ambivalent reference, with a young start who rose to the top. Born in Denver in 1958, her artist skills were developed under the influence of a family dedicated to Art in plastic. She lived and studied between America and Italy. Following a grant in Rome and two collective expositions, in 1979, she finally settled in New York , where she remained until the end of her life in 1981. Her prolific work has had a extraordinary influence, being displayed in collections at the Metropolitan Museum, MOMA and the Foundation Cartier.
The work of Francesca Woodman can be tied to artists like Hannah Wilke, Ana Mendieta or Cindy Sherman, in their approach to self-portraits and the reflections around the identity. As with all the images of Woodman there is an unanticipated eco, unsettling, elusive. From a very personal language, introspection leads to self-recognition, in explorations and discoveries that mark with astonishment and vertigo.
As small pieces of surreal dreams and memories about to be lost, in her photos, the body shape merges into poetic evocations and the interactions between architecture and objects. The fear of dissolution, the risk of losing oneself, encourage the need to redraw the contours of the body, to find yourself at risk of loneliness and isolation. Overwhelming and intimate, with a violent delicacy, Woodman pictures capture the most exquisite form of survival.
Bárbara Muriel
The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (www.metmuseum.org) will dedicate the sprinig to two important fashion icons. From the 10th of May until the 19th August, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada cross the XX Century from one point to another, to meet in New York and explore the sinergies, finities and specificities of their relationship with fashion and art.
The conversations of both Italian creators move between the impossible and fiction, the string between the objects, designs and videos, which delve into their careers and offer us new views on politics, women, creativity and art.
United by the dominance of small subversions and surrealistic winks, both designers have been stamped in the way they have introduced playful and unconventional elements into their creations as well as thinking that fashion is a permananetne interaction with culture.
The halls of MET thereby evoke the experiences in the world of fashion and artistic creation, Dali and Schiaparelli with Surrealist movement, and Prada, in charge of the Fondazione Prada, linked to the eclectic sense of Postmodernism.
Bárbara Muriel
Since showing at Central Saint Martin’s graduate fashion show in 2010, Yusuke Maegawa has been widely considered in fashion circles as one-to-watch. The designer’s graduate collection used pleats, bows and ruffles to create bold shapes and dramatic silhouettes. Long in need of an overhaul, Maegawa has given bows and ruffles a new level of cool. Using fabrics almost entirely in black the designer created contrast with striking combinations of textures and fabrics – the roughness of towel, cotton and boiled wool were used against the shiny smoothness of synthetic fabrics.
Maegawa admires and is inspired by the innovation of Japanese textile makers, which allow him to work with pleats and other design aspects that would not be possible with non-synthetic fabrics. He’s also influenced by 80s Japanese street style, which is evident in his following collections.
His AW2011 designs aimed to bring many of the same silhouettes and shapes to women as those offered in his AW 2010 graduate collection, but in more wearable forms and using more practical and sophisticated fabrics. Still, the collection has it’s own distinct identity. There is a kimono-esque look to many of the pieces where rough-edged, juxtaposed fabrics, such as bleached denim and Neoprene-bonded fabric wrap around the chest where a Kimono’s Obi would naturally sit. Splashes of colour are introduced and, more notably and to greater effect; asymmetric patchwork, exposed seams and frayed edges which we again see in his most recent collection.
Maegawa’s SS 2012 collection is a refinement of the previous collection’s best features combined with no shortage of fresh ideas and designs. While the trademark contrast of textures and shapes is again a highlight of the designs, the forms have a softer edge. There is a complete change in direction to a light colour palette with ethereal tones – whites and neutral colours with silver detailing, shades of blue and barely-there pink pastels. Maegawa continues to be inspired by his love of innovative Japanese fabrics. Ruffles, pleats and bows still feature but this time beautifully tailored jackets, delightfully feminine details, such as silk prints, delicate embroidery and other embellishments take centre stage. Surprising and fun accessories of clear plastic such as the bracelets with metal spikes and 5-inch waist belts give a nod to the Japanese street fashion that serves as much of Maegawa’s inspiration. I love the white bandage-like arm pieces, which finish in a cuff with bows, reminiscent of a long glove with a wrist corsage.
The beautifully tailored jackets and dresses, and the fabrics and colours ideal for summer make the SS 2012 collection far more wearable than the designer’s previous collections which will perhaps bring him commercial success. It is however a no less interesting collection and his work continues to showcase his ingenuity and creativity. It is sure to capture a new level of interest in the emerging designer.
By Jacqui Loadman
Credits:Autumn Winter 2010 St Martin’s College Graduate Collection, Yusuke Maegawa Autumn Winter 2011, Yusuke Maegawa Spring Summer 2012
A Forerunner in contemporary performance, Cahun uses her own body as the centre of her reflections as her identity. Through the camera, the artist draws frames with auto reflexive and destabilizing vocation. Like the frame of a mirror, a theatre scene or the limits a pupil, the images -poetic, dramatic, ironic and disturbing- return a infinity of possible to be forms, more or less distorted, ambivalent, comic or subversive, and always irrevocably, denatured.
With the naked skull, sharp profile and a severe look, the writer, photographer and performer, challenges from her inner depth the truth and conventions that could dress her in a an homonymic and constant form. Her work, as reflected in the exhibition, intimidates through its frankness regarding empty answers and questioning who we are.
Unique and numerous, whole and fragmented, with an infinity of ways in which you can interpret it, and in which ways it can be viewed. Claude Cahun always consulted Suzanne Malherbe - known as Marcel Moore-, her intimate partner, artist collaborator and life long representative. Besides self-portraits, Cahun portrayed small household objects, trinkets as well as photomontages, in an innovative form through her work. Linked to Surrealism, in Paris, between the wars she maintained close friendships with intellectuals and avant-garde artists as well as holding an important role in the resistance against the Nazi occupation, in which enhances the political dimension of her work. Anti-conventionalist, sensitive to the extreme, her production continues to offer a strong potential interpretive with a disquieting aesthetic impact.
Bárbara Muriel
Masai beads in swimming suits, horns and African jewels in Kaftans, the stripy huts of Norfolk beach in mini skirts or the lovely ukelele detail in shirts neck collected from picture postcards from around the world inspire the prints in the Swash Spring Summer collection 2012.
The London based creative designers Sarah Swash and Toshio Yamanaka are the brand´s Alma Mater. Both Central Saint Martins graduates invite you on a dream world tour with their dog, Candy -the brand´s primma donna- present in most of the prints, as your friendly companion.
“Across the Seven Seas” is the name of a collection where some fantastical series of artworks emerge, graced with the names “Honolulu”, “Côte d’Azur”, or “Orient Express”. Luxury scarves in crepe de chine or double chiffon, high quality beach towels, bags in printed leather or canvas and even amazing iPhone cases providing a taste of the summer, lying down on a sun lounger on a Hawaiian paradise beach, a relaxed peek inside the Polynesia.
The Swash studio is located in east London. There, the Swash staff looks after every production detail, always choosing the best materials for each garments. Every step is important in order to achieve the best high quality results the brand is known for.
Reknown fashion stylist Sebastian Kaufmann and photographer Billy Ballard work together in the photobook to create a personal and unique universe which will catch you faster than a summer love.
If you want to know more about Swash London visit the website for the latest news on their website.
Patricia Sáinz Martín
Why wait until Summer?
Stuart Vevers, the Creative Director of Loewe discovered the original bag Flamenco from 1984 in the archives of the Fashion House and he decided to revive and adapt the design to fit with modern trends.
27 years later we can now enjoy the re-invented Flamenco.
Congratulations to the fanatics of fetishism rock, to the lovers of the post modern culture and to the fans of snooping around the neighbourhoods of the famous. Until 26th of February 2012 the Victoria & Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk) invites us to step through the doors of Annie Lennoxs’ home (outright performer and platinum icon of the contemporary music).
Like in a small and personal museum, the exposition explores the image and the creative vision of the Scottish singer, through a selection of costumes and accessories worn by Lennox, together with photographs, treasured objects, awards, documents of political campaigns and commitments in which she has been implied publicly, music videos and recordings of conversation with the artist.
Born on Christmas day 1954, Annie Lennox started her musical career in the 70s. She has formed herself in the Royal Academy of Music in London and has developed her career with The Tourist (1977-1980), Eurythmics with Dave Stewart (1980-1990) and as a solo artist.
Nearly 80 million records sold all over the world, dozens of awards, a Golden Globe and an Oscar for “best original song”, are proofs of a brilliant career, which shines even more for the human quality of the vocalist and her labours as an activist fighting against HIV in Africa.
From Lurex,ties, leather and the glitter from the stage until her most committed solitary initiatives, The House of Annie Lennox pays tribute to a key figure in the British and international art scene in the last few decades. Passionate, successful breaker, solitary, personal, Lennox always seemed to have known from what her sweet dreams are made of.
Bárbara Muriel
With alluring, natural elegance and the lightness of a camellia flower, the CHANEL Summer 2012 tote bag is a true embodiment of CHANEL’s founding principles.
The interlocking double C motif and the legendary address of 31 rue Cambon in woven jacquard on a cotton canvas, finely trimmed with leather, gives this bag a truly refined style.
With its simple and sophisticated design, the CHANEL Summer 2012 collection tote bag is the perfect day-to-day accessory. Leather handles and a chain intertwined with ribbon, allow the bag to be carried in the hand or on the shoulder.
Photographer: Halard
To discover such a talent that expresses herself with absolute freedom, that plays around with colors and textures in virtually impossible mixtures, with a unique style , elegant and bohemian at the same time , that is what it’s like discovering Muriel Brandolini .
The editorial Rizzoli has published “The world of Muriel Brandolini” presenting us with her creations of this interior designer, in images that compose her creations. We invite you to visit them by our small exposition of her work .
Culture influences that have build her life, Vietnam in her young years , going through Venice , Paris, La Martinica and New York, You can see the cultural journey through her work and in the use of gold colors and textures , a work that cant be framed in a specific style, it is more like reinventing herself continuously
Fun , full of color, elegant, bohemian and voluptuous .
Photographer: Streetporter
Photographer: Estersohn
Photographer: Estersohn
Photographer: Estersohn
Photographer: Estersohn
Just over one month since its Centre Pompidou Paris launch, ASVOFF 4 has already made its way across the globe to Tokyo, and will now travel West making its American debut at the 10th Edition of Art Basel/Miami Beach December 1st-4th, the most prestigious art show in the Americas. The ASVOFF 4 Miami screenings, in collaboration with the Morgan Hotel Group and ACRIA (AIDS Community Research Initiative of America), will take place at the Delano Hotel in an Art Basel/Miami endorsed event, ‘ART BASEL/MIAMI LOVES FASHION FILM’.
Inaugurating the world’s most renowned Art Fair December 1st, an extraordinary event organized by ACRIA including the Who’s who of the Art and Fashion worlds at the Delano Hotel will toast fashion icon Diane Pernet, celebrating the occasion of the U.S. premier of her groundbreaking A Shaded View on Fashion Film Festival.
