What's up! trouvaillesdujour: June 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion, a comprehensive survey of avant-garde Japanese fashion features more than 100 costumes by original designers including Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto as well as younger designers influenced by popular culture and the dynamic street life of Tokyo.

This exciting exhibition, on view at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), highlights the tremendous innovation of Japanese fashion designers from the early 1980s to the present who revolutionized the way we think of fashion today. The designs reflect a range of influences from Japanese aesthetics, reinterpretations of Western couture, punk aesthetics and Japanese street fashion.

"The exhibition shows how Japanese fashion design launched itself on the world stage in the 1980s. Japanese fashion designers at that time developed breathtaking aesthetic positions that subsequently influenced a younger generation of Western designers including Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and Alexander McQueen".
~~~Catharina Manchanda, SAM's Jon & Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art.

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

Comme des Garçons (Rei Kawakubo)
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Rei Kawakubo
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garçons
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Junya Watanabe
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Yohji Yamamoto
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Mintdesigns
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Kosuke Tsumura
Courtesy Kyoto Costume Institute

Matohu
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Issey Miyake
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Hanae Mori
Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion is on exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.

June 27 - September 8, 2013

Courtesy Seattle Art Museum

Also featuring in the Huffington Post

Monday, June 24, 2013

Photo of the Day

La conversation du matin avec l'ivre mort de la veille
Morning conversation with drunkard of the night before

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Lavish Hairstyles by J.D. 'OKHAI OJEIKERE

J.D. 'OKHAI OJEIKERE was born in 1930 in the western part of Nigeria. One of his cousins advised him to buy a camera and tought him what he needs to know. In his young days Ojeikere incessantly wrote to the Ministry of Information, asking them to hire him as an "assistant in the dark room". His tenacity was rewarded when in 1961 the first television station was founded.

At the eve of the decolonization he was contacted by the West African Publicity agency where he paid his dues; soon after he opened his own studio "Foto Ojeikere". In 1967 he became an active member of the Nigeria Art Council, a group in charge of organizing a festival of visual and living arts. This was an opportunity for Ojeikere to devote himself to Nigerian culture, to which he was deeply attached.

"Hairstyles" will be his most known collection, involving almost 1000 different hairstyles that give an image of the African woman. He found these "artsy sculptures" on the street, at weddings or at work.

Ojeikere lives and works in Nigeria. His Hairstyles series is currently on view at Il Palazzo Enciclopedico, at the 55th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.
La Biennale di Venezia
June 1 - November 24, 2013

J.D. 'OKHAI OJEIKERE

Hairstyles

Agaracha © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Mkpuk Eba © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Modern Suku © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Onile Gogoro or Akaba © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Star Koroba © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Udoji © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Ife Bronze © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Pineapple © J.D. Okhai Ojeikere and courtesy Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Courtesy the artist and Fifty One Fine Art Photography

Also on the Huffington Post

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Photo of the Day

Father and Son

Provence, France, 1955

Photo © Elliott Erwitt

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Cuerpos Sagrados or Sacred Bodies

"Cuerpos Sagrados" is a series of images where the artist Holly Wilmeth has used the human body together with exotic insects and plants to represent ceremonial plants around the world (peyote, ayahuasca, iboga, etc). It's a personal interpretation of the subject matter, using digital and alternative gold leafing process for the prints. The people that are painted are from Rio Dulce, Guatemala as well as San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

The painted bodies: Black, which is considered to be an inauspicious color in most cultures, is the color of 'living', worn on the face during war preparations. White predictably is the color of peace. Decorating one's face in various patterns and shapes has been a part of the culture make-up of many societies since the beginning of time. Face painting is a common theme across cultures as divergent as the Indigenous American tribes in North America and various tribes in Africa and South America. In Native American Tribes, Face Painting has been used for artistic expression since ancient times. The art of transforming ourselves with make-up and masks is a universal phenomenon. Before we sought to vent our artistic impulse on a cave wall, we painted on our faces and bodies. Indigenous peoples of the Amazon have said that in this power to change ourselves, we demonstrate our humanity and set ourselves apart from the world of the animals.
~~~Holly Wilmeth

Holly Wilmeth was born and raised in Guatemala. Her work has been published in international publications such as National Geographic Adventure, New York Times, CARE, TIME Magazine, GEO Magazine, Monocle, The Economist, etc. She is based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Holly Wilmeth

"Cuerpos Sagrados"

Courtesy the artist.

Featuring in the Huffington Post

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Photo of the Day

Loading Zone

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Crinoline Flowers vs Jeu de Jambes

Crinoline Flowers is a stunning series created by wedding photographer Sophia Banks.

To Sophia Banks: What inspired you to do this series?

The Crinoline Flowers series was made several years ago and was inspired by a spring walk in the park, the cluttered vintage stores in Kensington market and my identity as a transgender woman.

The vision for the photos almost literally just appeared in my mind as you see them. I choose the bright colors to represent the flowers and also as a tribute to the LGBT rainbow.

When I made this series I was still young and sorting through my gender identity, trying to figure out who I was. The surreal over the top feel of the images came from a place where I felt repressed and expressed that with my photography in a way I could not find the courage to do in my life.
~~~ Sophia Banks

Sophia Banks lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Crinoline Flowers