A craftsperson's artistic process can be uniquely complex. While inspiration may be sudden, creating an object or a specific design in a workshop may indeed take quite a long time and several stages between experimentation, research into materials and development of innovative approaches. This is the theme of Mindcraft14, the yearly event organised during Milan Design Week by Danish Crafts, an institution of the Danish Ministry of Culture aimed at promoting local art and crafts internationally.
Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation and curated by acclaimed designer Nina Tolstrup (from design firm Studiomama and well known for collaborating with fashion brand Marc by Marc Jacobs), Mindcraft brings to Milan's Fuori Salone pieces created by 12 craftspeople.
Between lamps produced using thermoforming/moulding (Iskos-Berlin's "The Birth of Marilyn"), a piece of meta-jewellery consisting in a long "ribbon" of pencil lead stitched/woven together ("iLoveLetters" by Katrine Borup) and a collection of ceramic works that reinterprets the archetypal jar shapes ("Horror Vacui" by Morten Løbner Espersen), there is also "The Dance of the Deaf and Dumb Eye", a series of three papier-mâché, yarn, fabric, glass and acrylic wig sculptures, by Nikoline Liv Andersen.
The pieces combine the three wise monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru, with references to the French court under Louis XVI, while commenting upon the consequences of shutting against the outside world by refusing to see, hear or speak, and hinting in this way at the globalisation conditions of today's blind consumers.
Born in Copenhagen, Andersen was educated at The Danish Design School. After graduating in fashion design in 2006 she opted to develop her personal research into different fields, creating installations suspended between design, crafts and art and made following haute couture techniques.
Her installations and one-off pieces require many hours of work and are often made with unconventional materials and with techniques including embroidering, painting and surface elaboration processes that radically transform a material to make it look like something else. In her practice craft is definitely the added value to an otherwise future of replicants.
As Nina Tolstrup also states in a Mindcraft press release: "Global industrial manufacturing is becoming increasingly uniform, simplified and thus also more vulnerable to plagiarism. Craft is a powerful response – as well as an important source of inspiration for renewal and development in industrial manufacturing".
Is this the first time you're part of the Mindcraft event at Ventura Lambrate and what do you expect from this experience? Nikoline Liv Andersen: Yes, it is and I look forward to it. I recently won Remix 2014 in the category "Pimp my Coat", in collaboration with Saga Furs, and also this event took place in Milan, but this is the first time I join the Milanese design week. For Mindcraft I will be presenting 3 monkey wigs from my project "The Dance of the Deaf and Dumb Eye".
Your practice is suspended between art and fashion design: do you consider yourself an artist or a fashion designer? Nikoline Liv Andersen: People often ask me if I am an artist or a designer. I tell them that I am a designer because I am educated as a designer. I actually think that too many calls themselves artists, while that is a title that you have to live up to. But I know that I am working more with clothing as an artist than as a designer.
You create installations and clothing designs that challenge people's perceptions of the world – which are your favourite materials? Nikoline Liv Andersen: I really love experimenting with materials and fabrics and I try to give them new aesthetic qualities. I am very fascinated by transforming industrially produced materials such as straws and nails into something organic. I like to twist the idea of what is natural and what is artificial.
The bizarre woollen monkey wigs make me think about Marie Antoinette - is there a reference to history in this pieces? Nikoline Liv Andersen: You’re absolutely right about the story behind the monkey wigs. I was invited by Designmuseum Danmark to participate in a Rococo exhibition and work with Rococo with a new intercultural perspective. Based on the classic Japanese monkeys who naively shut out the outside world by not seeing, not hearing and not speaking, the clothing sculptures were visualised through a counterpart to the French court of Louis XVI, whose excessive exuberance and poor communication between nobility and the people led to the French Revolution. Through my work I am always searching for a meaning of life and questioning our way of living.
Most of your work is done by hand: which is the material that took you the longest time to work? Nikoline Liv Andersen: Everything I do is extremely time-consuming, but I love working with delicate details in the fabric. One of my most complicated garments I have made was a dress made out of bristly nails. It was really complicated to sew and you had to be very aware of the order of steps in the process. Another complicated dress was a big black, red and white dress made out of 45.000 straws!
You have also been experimenting with Saga Furs – what kind of new ways of treating fur and of piecing furs together did you experiment with? Nikoline Liv Andersen: I find it very funny and interesting to give fur an edgy look by mixing it with metal or plastic.
Can you tell us more about receiving the Gold Award at Remix 2014 - Pimp my Coat? Nikoline Liv Andersen: It was a great honor to receive it. I found the theme of the competition very interesting – you had to remake an old vintage fur coat. Instead of throwing an old coat out you can remake it and give it a longer life. I really liked that.
Will you be taking part in any further events after Ventura Lambrate? Nikoline Liv Andersen: At the moment I am working on a very big event that will take place in Copenhagen in May. Also in May I have a solo exhibition at the Horsens Art Museum.
2.- 6. Nikoline Liv Andersen; "The Dance of the Deaf and Dumb Eye" by Nikoline Liv Andersen, 2014. Product images: MINDCRAFT/jeppegudmundsen.com; Portrait: MINDCRAFT / Alastair Philip Wiper;
Milan Design Week officially opened yesterday, but some of the designers involved have been launching innovative projects and installations already in the last few days. Fashion designer Federico Sangalli is one of them.
On Monday Sangalli showcased at the Galleria Antik, a space dedicated to antique scientific instruments and works of art made with recycled materials, a gown that combines tradition with technology.
Dubbed the "Light My Night" gown and created in collaboratin with Il Filo dei Sogni, the dress gradually lights up becoming more brilliant in the dark, creating a unique effect. The gown is indeed made with a optical fibre-based organza and was made following the highest craftsmanship traditions while also looking at new technologies.
The gown will be on display in the next few days at the DreamLux stand (the company owns the patents to manufacture textiles with Luminex optical fibre) at the International Furniture Fair (until 13th April), at the DreamLux Lounge at Byblos (11th April) and at RusskiDom (11th April).
The number of fashion designers referencing specific works of art or collaborating with modern artists grows season after season. Raf Simons incorporated collages by Los Angeles-based visual artist Sterling Ruby in his A/W 2014 menswear collection, turning them into oversized and voluminous trenches and coats; Proenza Schouler used as starting point for their A/W 2014 womenswear collection a representative of the California Clay Movement, Ron Nagle; Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino opted for Giosetta Fioroni, the only woman in the so-called Scuola di Piazza del Popolo, a group of Italian Pop-oriented artists from the '60s; Burberry Prorsum's Christopher Bailey turned to the Bloomsbury Group, Guillaume Henry at Carven paid homage to the Dadaists and Jean Pierre Braganza sent out garments with prints of Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
And let's avoid mentioning the arty accessories, that include shoes with Cubist (instead of Cuban...) heels and arty canvas rucksacks or clutch bags in the shape of art portfolios. In a nutshell, the next time you go out shopping you may need to ask not your best friend but an art critic to accompany you, while at the next major art fair or biennale you may end up spotting more fashion designers than at a glamorous fashion show.
But is this a genuine will to rediscover art or just a quick way out and why has this cross-pollination between art and fashion become so strong in the last few seasons? Besides, when did it all start?
Fashion and art started a serious flirt in the '90s. First we had a series of artists who showed an interest in the fashion industry because this medium has a more immediate power and can reach out to a wider audience compared to art. Around the same period of time, the fashion industry financially hit a boom phase and this meant that it became possible for it to provide sources that could be employed for art purposes. The fashion industry also started getting interested in the art world because, in the society of the spectacle, very strong visual images infiltrate the media in a much more effective way, and fashion tried to assume from the art world its capacity to create effectively experimental and radically rebellious images that could help selling specific products on the mass market.
If you want to know more about this story, Russian speakers can check out the piece about art and fashion I wrote for the April issue of Ural-based magazine WTF (What's The Fashion?), a publication for design, architecture and fashion fans. If you instead want to bring back some genuine joie de vivre into fashion and art just go out in a dirty T-shirt covered in blotches and stains, and, if somebody ever questions your look, just explain them you're trying to channel Jackson Pollock. Now THAT would be a truly visionary art and fashion connection...
At the moment it's also cherry blossom season in major cities in Japan, such as Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, while "grass sakura" covers the fields around Mt. Fuji in blankets of pink flowers.
I decided to merge the two things - opera and cherry blossoms - in my new necklace to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly debuting at Milan's La Scala (17th February 1904; opera fans may remember that the debut was actually a bit of a disaster...).
The necklace is about Ciocio-san waiting for Pinkerton and singing "Un bel dì vedremo" (One fine day we will see), the opera's most famous aria in which she tells Suzuki her husband will come back.
For further inspirations I looked up at the colours for the opera posters by Adolfo Hohenstein (1904), Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1904), and Ercole Brini (1955; this was a film adaptation of the opera, directed by Carmine Gallone and with Kaoru Yachigusa and Nicola Filacuridi as Butterfly and Pinkerton), plus the original costume sketches by Giuseppe Palanti, especially for the violet shades in one of his drawings that I tried to replicate in the colour of the rope.
The main material I employed is driftwood that I found a while back. I polished and hand-painted it in a cherry blossom shade. I spent a few days mixing colours to get the right shade right to paint the wood and the grass sakura (made with a sponge...), but, judging from the final results, it was absolutely worth it.
While Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" ends in a tragic way, the necklace freezes the scene in a rather positively hopeful moment in which confidence and expectation prevail over despair.
Milan Design Week starts in a few days' time and will as usual offer plenty of fashion and design appointments around. If you plan to be in Milan and are on the lookout for something unusual with an architectural twist, join the Porta Venezia in Design Liberty heritage tours (11th e 12th April; with an info point based in Via Malpighi 7).
The itinerary includes many buildings from the Venezia Library (previous Dumont Cinema) to Casa Campanini with its polychrome glass doors, fresco friezes and wrought iron decorations.
Among the hightlights there will be Casa Galimberti (Via Malpighi 1), decorated with a beautiful enamelled ceramic façade, and the Albergo Diurno Venezia (under Piazza Oberdan), that once featured bath tubs and shower areas, changing rooms, sitting rooms, a barber shop, a spa, a post office, a bank, a florist, a magazine stall and a travel agency.
As a further Liberty-related inspiration and to create a geographical contrast with the above-mentioned event in Milan, I'm posting here this illustration for the Magazzini Mele.
After buying the Palazzo della Borghesia in Naples, brothers Emiddio and Alfonso Mele, inspired by La Fayette and Bon Marché (they visited them during their trips in Paris in the 1880s), turned the building in 1889 into the "Grandi Magazzini Mele" (Mele Department Stores).
The largest shopping mall in Naples (2,000 square metres), the department stores sold between 1889 and 1930 men, women and children's wear, accessories (including perfumes), fabrics, interior design pieces and wines.
Elegance, taste and style were the keywords and the Mele lifestyle was promoted also through posters and postcards illustrated by famous artists (including Achille Beltrame, Luigi Caldanzano, Leonetto Cappiello, S. De Stefano, Marcello Dudovich, Franz Laskoff, Gian Emilio Malerba, Achille Luciano Mauzan, Aldo Mazza, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Enrico Sacchetti, Aleardo Terzi and Aleardo Villa). Enjoy!
There is this rather silly trend at the moment in fashion of justifying in improbable ways everything you do.
You ask somebody why they used a specific colour, what inspired a collection or a shoot, and they start dropping names, mentioning this or that rare art archive, almost to validate their work, while it would be simpler and more credible to just reply "I fancied that" or "I dreamt about it". After all, the most beautiful ideas are often the simplest and and they are the result of sudden bursts of inspiration.
In the same way you wish Franca Sozzani, supreme editor at Vogue Italia, would have tried to avoid justifying the shoot appearing on the April 2014 issue (currently out) of the magazine.
On the cover a woman appears to be lying on the floor next to a man who looks more or less dead. A title reads "Cinematic" and inside the magazine there is a Steven Meisel shoot inspired by horror movies showing models (Issa Lish and Natalie Westling) cowering in fear, being threatened by a maniac looking knife-wielding man (Bernd Sassmannhausen), or lying dead while in the background a blurred killer sits and stares (for what regards the cover, the assumption is that the model has just committed an act of violence in self-defence...).
In Italy there is a long tradition of horror films and there is an even longer tradition of fashion houses lending their garments to horror directors. One of the best thriller movies Mario Bava ever shot takes places in a fashion atelier and features models being killed and dropping dead one after the other, and we learnt in previous posts how Dario Argento even directed a catwalk show with a surprise killer appearing on the runway and how thriller films keep on inspiring fashion adverts and photoshoots.
Therefore, while some readers may have found a bit annoying and scary the idea of a maniac running wild in the pages of a glossy fashion magazine, the title of the shoot - "Horror Movie" - would have maybe pointed towards iconic scary movies and even the most sceptical readers may have been left content with the explanation that Meisel was just channelling Dario Argento & Co.
But, no, unfortunately Ms Sozzani thought that was probably not so controversial and - to explain the shoot and possibly sell more copies - she decided to justify it as an attempt at fighting against domestic violence.
Now, before moving any kind of critique to Sozzani, bear in mind that people who spend too much time in a fashion-related environment may display a terrific detachment from reality.
Sozzani has spent the last few days between the opening party for "The Glamour of Italian Fashion" exhibition at the V&A Museum, among uncountable numbers of alleged tax evaders living in fiscal paradises, and the Venetian show and party thrown by Diesel to celebrate the first results of its new collaboration with Nicola Formichetti.
Being surrounded by models, money, dubious characters and chancers obviously gives you a very different perspective on life, compared to the perspective of an ordinary person, more worried about less glamorous engagements such as paying the bills and doing the school rounds.
According to an interview published on The Independent, after seeing the images Meisel had shot Sozzani linked the two things, and realised that women in Italy and all over the world are attacked, abused and killed. Somehow you feel like standing and clapping: having figured it out now, in 2014, when she's only 64, is a definite achievement, a key moment in her otherwise glamorous existence. Unfortunately some of us discovered it earlier on in their lives for different reasons and, while some got away, others are still in therapy and there's also a few ones who can't tell their stories any more because they were killed in the process.
Sozzani also added in the interview: "It was not against men, it’s about the fact that women have to be defended. And a lot of people are already doing something, because I know that even some other people in fashion are really committed to defending women and raising awareness, to empower women." It may have been a translation problem, but, if our fierce editrix states, "even some other people in fashion are really committed..." she sounds as if she herself is actually amazed that some people in the fashion industry may be committed to defending women, almost implicitly revealing the contradictions of the industry she represents.
Fashion is indeed excellent at denying the same things it states it's fighting against: it's feminist but puts pressures upon women, convincing them they will be socially unacceptable if they don't buy that bag or wear those shoes; it claims it stands against food disorders, but then encourages models to starve themselves; it states it's not racist, but it's a mainly white industry; it proclaims it's ethical and exploits millions of workers.
Fashion is a bit like Alice's looking-glass, it reflects unreal and untrue images, it retouches and makes you believe it supports the opposite of what you can actually see (if Vogue Italia will ever do a photoshoot inspired by Rosemary's Baby it will claim it's a tribute to Catholic religion...).
Sozzani may be against domestic violence, but she ends up showing not an antidote or a cure, but another history of violence. It's as if to benefit a young girl suffering from anorexia, you would show her catwalk images of thin models wearing the latest collections.
If you were genuinely against domestic violence, you may have done a different shoot with real women who recovered after they were hit, wounded, or disfigured, to prove other victims of violence that you can actually find again your strength and get on with life. Or what about calling a charity and doing a project with them? (note: a charity and not a trendy venture sponsored by a powerful fashion group wearing the philanthropy cloak...).
Maybe if Sozzani had opted for this solution she may have discovered that victims of domestic violence are rarely dressed in designer coats and are rarely followed around by mysterious killers.
Most of the times they are the victims of their own partners as violence occurs within the family, and among the many factors that trigger violence there aren't just misogyny, resentment, and personality problems, but also the stress of poverty, and, in some countries and cultures, a woman can get battered by her husband if she wears clothes deemed to be not sufficiently modest.
Domestic violence can also be psychological, emotional or sexual, can happen in heterosexual or same sex relationships and occurs within all age ranges (have we forgotten about children?), ethnic backgrounds and social classes.
While not all abusive relationships involve violence, this simple word is also linked to a long list of terrible acts, including marital rape, forced marriages and child marriages. These are all issues related to domestic violence that can't be implicitly tackled in a shoot about horror movies.
The most surreal thing about the entire story remains one basic and simple point: a horror movie is a work of fiction, and a shoot in a glossy magazine is fiction as well. In a nutshell, the blood is fake and your dead actresses or models will stand up at the very end and walk away.
When real domestic violence occurs, the blood is real, when somebody lies on the floor motionless she may be really dead, and a victim of domestic violence never leaves behind a beautiful corpse.
There's something else though that makes you bitterly laugh and shake your head: turn to page 244 of Vogue where you will be able to read a rambling piece by (male) Vogue Italia feature editor Carlo Ducci (you see, there were no intelligent women around to write it...) in which the magazine becomes a sort of masked super hero, rescuing women, offering counselling, and engaged in civic responsibility.
"What is important for us is that at least one of the dozens of women suffering violence every day can feel our nearness," Mr Ducci, writes at some point. I may not be so well informed about the issue, but a victim of violence rarely dreams of Balenciaga, Miu Miu, Fendi and Marc Jacobs while being attacked or feels the glamorous nearness of Wonder Franca spreading all around her. She usually hopes that the person perpetrating violence will stop and - unfortunately - that rarely happens...
The number of fashion exhibitions and fashion related events is constantly on the rise. Yet, the monumental amount of information, materials and garments on display quite often leaves visitors simply crushed and unable to grasp them all. If you're looking for more contained fashion-related events that do not focus only on garments and pretty gowns, opt for "Jean Paul Gaultier: Be My Guest" at the Fashion Space Gallery.
First launched in 2010, the gallery situated within London College of Fashion's Oxford Circus campus, was recently relaunched, though it still preserves its main aim, supporting both established artists and cutting-edge and emerging talents.
"Be My Guest" - a satellite show linked to "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk", a major event that will soon be opening at the Barbican Art Gallery - features the French designer’s graphic artwork from the 1980s on, including the couturier’s unique designs for invitations to Haute Couture and Prêt-à-Porter shows, as well as his iconic advertising campaigns.
Being the first major exhibition devoted to Gaultier in the UK, the main event at the Barbican will naturally be more spectacular, with over 165 couture and ready-to-wear garments, costumes for film and performances (including iconic pieces such as the conical bra and corsets worn by Madonna and costumes for Pedro Almodóvar's movies).
Yet "Be My guest" promises to be equally intriguing since people with an interest in photography, illustration and graphic design will be able to rediscover materials such as the campaigns for Gaultier's first women’s Prêt-à-Porter collection launched for the Spring/Summer 1977or for his "Tribute to Frida Kahlo" Collection (Spring/Summer 1998).
Throuhout his career the French designer created his own cultural geography, incorporating Russian, Hebrew and Eastern alphabets and orthography into his clothing, and the invitations and advertising campaigns feature his very personal iconography.
In Gaultier's universe terms such as space, place and landscape, do not have any boundaries: silhouettes evoking women from the '40s appear in his posters in bright acid colours, while national identity is erased in favour of a transnational hybridisation that mixes Frida Kalho and Che Guevara with religious images appropriated or borrowed from Roman Catholicism or Orthodox Judaism.
Fashion is represented not only by garments and powerful photographs, but illustrations and promotional materials as well, and while the materials on display here have mainly got a specific commercial and marketing aim, they can lead to interesting debates about the power of the image and the importance of articulating specific messages, while providing graphic inspirations as well.
Co-curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot (who also worked on "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk") and Alison Moloney from London College of Fashion, "Be My Guest" will be the first exhibition from Fashion Space Gallery’s new exhibitions and events programme devised by its new director Ligaya Salazar.
Professor Frances Corner OBE, Pro-Vice Chancellor of UAL and Head of London College of Fashion, stated in a press release about the event: "We are honoured to be exhibiting, for the first time, this extensive body of work. Jean Paul Gaultier’s influence transcends the catwalk and the spectrum of his image-making will inspire a new generation across the breadth of the fashion industry."
"Jean Paul Gaultier: Be My Guest, Fashion Space Gallery", 11 April – 31 May 2014. "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk" is organised by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in collaboration with Maison Jean Paul Gaultier, Paris. The exhibition is on view at the Barbican from 9th April to 25th August 2014.
Image credits for this post
1. Ad campaign for the "Fin de siècle" Collection, Women’s Prêt-à-Porter Spring/Summer 1995; Art Direction and Photography: Jean Paul Gaultier
2. Ad campaign for the "Tribute to Frida Kahlo" Collection, Women's Prêt-à-Porter Spring/Summer 1998; Illustration by Fred Langlais and Art Direction by Jean Paul Gaultier
3. Ad campaign for the "Chic Rabbis" Collection, Women’s Prêt-à-Porter Autumn/Winter 1993-1994; Art Direction and Photography: Jean Paul Gaultier
4. Show Invitation for "Constructivist" (or Russian) Collection. Women’s Prêt-à-Porter Autumn/Winter 1986-1987
5. Ad campaign for the "Elegance Contest" and "Casanova at the Gym" collections, Women’s and Men’s Prêt-à-Porter Spring/Summer 1992; Art Direction and Photography: Jean Paul Gaultier
There are literally thousands of contemporary art exhibitions all over the world, but just a few of them guarantee visitors of all ages to positively connect with the artworks on display. Exhibitions about or featuring Joana Vasconcelos's works are definitely among them.
The pleasure visitors derive from her artworks is indeed visual, but also synesthetically tactile. Yet there's more behind the artist who represented Portugal at the 55th Venice International Art Biennale.
If you carefully analyse Vasconcelos' works you realise that, behind the colours, the accumulation and the disorderly ordered chaos, there is another dimension, or rather, various temporal dimensions.
Time is indeed one theme the artist has touched upon since she started creating her artworks: her crocheted pieces are a way to go back in time and discover history and craft while finding her own identity, while even her intervention on the floating Portuguese pavilion at the Venice Biennale, was a way to elicit emotional responses from people, inviting them to erode temporal, spatial and geographical boundaries.
Vasconcelos' current exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery is undoubtedly the best one about the artist.
Featuring twenty-four art works, "Time Machine" invades and pervades the gallery spaces on different levels: a giant ice-cream and a cupcake made with plastic sand moulds play with the public spaces outside the building; Vasconcelos' new monumental piece, the colourfully riotous and tentacularly monumental textile living organism "Britannia" spreads from the ceiling to the stairs and the balconies; large artworks - including "War Games", a black Morris Oxford car covered in toy rifles and filled with brightly coloured soft and plastic toys - are on display in the space dedicated to contemporary exhibitions; a group of faience animals designed by Portuguese artist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro are covered or maybe imprisoned in intricate second skin-like crocheted nets and engage in a dialogue with works from the permanent collection of the museum.
The present and the past collide and communicate with each other, attempting to project themselves into the future: "Lilicoptère", a Bell 47 helicopter adorned with pink ostrich feathers and Swarovski Crystals, calls to mind historical figures à la Marie Antoinette, while pointing towards the saccharine kitsch of contemporary celebrities, proving to be a perfect time machine; luminous statues of Our Lady of Fatima fill a tricycle van commenting upon religious consumerism; what look like three beautiful flowers from a distance reveal to the visitors as kinetic sculptures made with steam irons that open and close hinting at a domestically robotic flower garden; a three dimensional textile sculpture erupts from a wall celebrating female voluptuousness and sparking a dialogue with William Etty's "The Sirens and Ulysses".
Objects and materials are completely transformed and assume new meanings, prompting visitors to ponder about today's key dichotomies such as traditions Vs modernity and artisanal Vs industrial, and challenging in a cleverly humorous way the limits between painting and sculpture, the figurative and the abstract.
Can you introduce us to the main themes of the "Time Machine" exhibition in Manchester? Joana Vasconcelos: The event has to do with time-travel – be it a travel to the past or to the future. Manchester Art Gallery collection's works are from the past, but they still make sense to us today. Thus, why not talk to them and interact with them? With this exhibition I decided to create a dialogue between the past and the future. I'm not doing anything new, but instead I'm continuing the work that was started many centuries ago. We evolve through the existence of others, and seeing us together makes sense. The new thing we have done with "Time Machine" is to open the doors to discussion, bringing a new life to the collection and creating a new dynamic. Curiously, I never know if I'm going back or going forward in time – I'm between worlds. Moreover, the theme of recycling and renewal is a common thread running through this show.
The new commission - "Britannia 2014" - features crocheted and knitted pieces, and different fabric elements, recycled clothes and Portuguese tassels, what inspired it? Do the cotton velvets you employed in this work also hint at Manchester (as they are referred to as Manchester cloth)? Joana Vasconcelos: "Britannia" is part of my "Valkyries" series, which I initiated in 2004. These works are inspired by the female characters of Norse mythology in charge of shaping the destiny of men and selecting the bravest and most valiant warriors killed in battle. I have been developing this series in a manner in which each work reports to a different universe. In "Britannia"’s case, I was very much inspired by Manchester’s history, the cloth and textiles that are very common in Portugal. We live from cotton and manufacturing just as Manchester used to, and I wanted to express that connection by using fabrics from around the world, to find a way of connecting Manchester and Lisbon, Britain and Portugal. Moreover, this piece also feminises the cold, steely, masculine space of the atrium with its array of colours, glitter, beads and flowers.
The three kinetic sculptures comprising the "Full Steam Ahead" group are made with steam irons but from a distance they look like amazing flowers: do they hint at the dichotomy in many women's lives, often trapped in the routine of an everyday life, but perennially looking for beauty? Joana Vasconcelos: That could be one way of looking at them. I don't, in fact, aim to enclose my works within a single discourse, but prefer to leave them open to interpretation. They are ambiguous and paradoxical, and the richness is exactly in that multiplicity of possible interpretations and discourses. This work, in particular, presents itself as a robotized fountain, reinterpreting the behavior of a flower's petals, opening and closing in a sort of synchronized, sci-fi choreography. It opposes and parodies other robotic universes prone to warlike transformism, through a contrast between the somewhat masculine universe that is called upon by the kineticism and industrially made objects, and the feminine, poetic language which the resulting work expresses.
Among the most striking pieces featured in the exhibition there is the helicopter covered in pink feathers: I heard that it was conceived as a modern Cinderella-carriage. Who would in our times use such a modern means of transport with such strong fable like connections? Joana Vasconcelos: Lady Gaga. Definitely.
The gallery also includes a series of smaller textile works that spark a dialogue with works of art from the city’s collections. Is there one work of art that you felt went pretty well with your pieces? Joana Vasconcelos: I was really happy with "Cottonopolis", the latest work from my "Tetris" series. This work was specifically conceived and realized for the exhibition, to contact with William de Morgan and Pilkington tiles, and to frame William Holman Hunt’s painting" The Shadow of Death", 1870-73. The feminine and the masculine are crossed in this work which makes a bridge between painting, sculpture and architecture, making use of Viúva Lamego azulejos (Portuguese tiles, from a factory founded in 1849) and tubes and protuberances in various crochets and fabrics that emerge from the structure, spreading themselves, contaminating the room with exuberant colours that remit to the surrounding paintings.
Is there a craft technique you'd like to experiment with in future? Joana Vasconcelos: There are so many to discover! But I would like to one day work with wicker. It's a technique that dates back to ancient Egypt, used to make a variety of items, that spread to various areas of the world throughout time. You can find it almost anywhere - it's a universal technique - and it has amazing, sculptural capacities.
Which is the most unusual material you have so far used in your pieces? Joana Vasconcelos: A lot of the materials I use can be deemed as unusual, if you think about the cooking pans I employed to build giant shoes, steam irons to build moving fountains, plastic sand molds to recreate huge treats or even crochet itself. However, I believe the most unusual to date has been tampons – employed to create the work "A Noiva" (The Bride, 2001-2005).
Your works are suspended between art and craft: is there an artist who inspires you? Joana Vasconcelos: I love all of René Lalique's work. The jewellery, the vases, the chandeliers – his works is exceptionally beautiful.
Is there a textile museum around the world where you would like to showcase your pieces? Joana Vasconcelos: I'm not a textile artist, but a contemporary artist who works with textiles and, thus, I never thought of exhibiting in such particular places. However, I would very much like to work with a Samba school for the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and realize an exhibition at the Guggenheim, in New York, for which I would like to create a site-specific intervention – and I know exactly which one!
Apart from this exhibition in Manchester at the moment you have another event - "Casarão" - in Brazil at the Casa Triângulo that also features "Aquarela", a serpentine sculpture that seems to invade a rigid structure covered in azulejos, and the waterfall-like "Amazônia". Do you have any further exhibition planned for this year? Joana Vasconcelos: The solo exhibition "Casarão", at the gallery Casa Triângulo, in São Paulo will be on until 10 May, while the site-specific piece "Amazônia" will be at the Pivô space, in the iconic Copan building of São Paulo until 26 April, in the exhibition commemorating the 25th anniversary of Casa Triângulo. I also will have two works ("Volupt"a, 2014, and "Perruque", 2012) in the exhibition "Baroque", at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, in Stockholm, until 19 October, as part of an event that presents classic works by Baroque icons such as Rembrandt and La Tour alongside contemporary artists, like Lida Abdul and John Coplans. I will be opening a solo exhibition in Berlin, at the end of June and then I will be involved in exhibitions in Macau and Shanghai, and also Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. To resume, this has been and will continue to be a hectic year, with a thoroughly busy schedule!
"Joana Casconcelos: Time Machine", Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL, UK, until 1st June 2014.
It's always a pleasure to do follow ups on artists, architects or designers featured on this site, especially when they come up with some clever ideas. In January, for example, we looked at the geometric world of Jamie Bruski Tetsill's Shapes of Things Ltd (SOTLTD).
Since that interview Tetsill was busy working with digital designer Gavin Murdoch and sound composer Chris Cooper who injected their magic into a series of animations for the brand site. Besides, the designer also came up with a childrenswear collection dubbed The Kids Collective.
The collection includes a wide range of affordable products - from bibs and blankets to jumpsuits and hoodies (check out the e-store here) - and incorporates clothing for children aged 0-14 years. All the garments are characterised by eye-catching vinyl appliquéd geometric shapes in bold neon colours or holographic textures to help kids expressing themselves in total freedom, while encouraging at the same time equality since no product has gender-specific colours.
While promoting the unifying power of geometry, the geometric shapes call to mind seminal textiles by Gunta Stölzl, typographic experimental alphabets tuned on the future and Space Age such as Wim Crouwel's and the dynamism of the Constructivists' artworks.
"I used to love patterns and plasticky textures as a kid and that's what inspired me for this collection," Tetsill told Irenebrination. "For what regards the campaign I have been looking instead at toys for a while and tried to de-construct them.".
The Kids Collective is accompanied by a campaign refusing the commercial exploitation of children, and celebrates the creative power of kids.
"The more I research into childrenswear, the more I get ideas about where I can take the collection next year. It would be cool to develop further functional clothes and get kids involved in the process," Tetsill stated.
"It would be amazing for instance to get kids to design their own patterns using my textures, so that they could get a personal product and learn something as well. Geometrical shapes are educational, but, in this way, the brand's design ethos would help kids achieve their full potential."
Tetsill, who started producing womenswear collections in 2008 and has since then also produced interior design pieces, conceives his childrenswear as part of a wider plan.
"I've always considered myself as an artist or a surface designer and Shapes of Things doesn't restrict me or pigeonholes me into one category such as 'fashion' or 'men and womenswear', but allows me to work with other people - animators, designers, graphics - and develop collaborative and innovative ideas."
In yesterday's post we looked at rigidity Vs illusionary mutable patterns. In the last few years creative minds from different fields including fashion and architecture have been studying the theme of mutability, coming up with transformative garments or buildings.
Digital media also helped us transforming static images into pictures in motion, opening new possibilities to professional photographers and amateurs as well.
Divided in different categories - Landscape, Lifestyle, Action, Night, People and Urban - the prize was open to photographers from all backgrounds and from all over the world (note: the Urban category is open until today). Google+ allows indeed to upload and easily animate a series of still photographs.
The prize will be judged by a panel including film director Baz Luhrmann, and artists Shezad Dawood and Cindy Sherman among others. Winners will have their works showcased in a special exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London launching on April 16th, with one overall winner getting the opportunity to go on a trip with a photographer or filmmaker of their choice. The exhibition will also be featured online on Saatchi Art.
The prize is an indirect way for Google+ (currently boasting 540 million users and with 1.5 billion photos being uploaded onto it every week) to celebrate its third anniversary in June this year, but also strengthens the power of innovative digital media.
This is not the first time Google and the Saatchi Gallery get together: a previous initiative organised by the same partners in 2012 to find the photography stars of the future received indeed nearly 20,000 entries from 148 countries.
It would actually be quite interesting to create in future an award entirely dedicated to children: it would be intriguing to see what they would photograph and if they would use animated images to celebrate their joy and happiness or also as a way to exorcise their fears and anxieties.
Image credits for this post
Simon McCheung, An Underwater Spell; Julien Douvier; Grégory Florent; Gopakumar R.