In his conceptual installations and sculptures Michael Johansson puts the qualities from daily life objects in opposition to their field of application. By repetition, displacement of scale, and new function, he questions the receivers interpretations of the unique. The objects are frozen in their new shape - while the function is displayed, the functionality is taken away.

Michael Johansson about his work: “I am fascinated by flea markets. Walking around to find doubles of seemingly unique, though often useless, objects I have already purchased at another flea market, is not only an inquisitive activity for me but part of my working process. Despite the fact that I did not have any use for most of these objects in the first place, the unlikeliness of discovering them twice in two different places makes the desire for their possession irresistible. The unique and the unknown origin of the object increases my wish to own its double. The rules compelling me in selecting things at flea markets are also central to my art practice. Engaging directly with these objects, manipulating them, juxtaposing them against each other or representing them in a new context is my method of work. Through out my different explorations of the potentials of my collection of found and acquired things, one has been to free objects from their function. By forcing these objects into contexts in which their functional qualities are put into opposition with their field of application, the objects are stripped of their meaning for existence. In a series of work I have assembled objects connected to a certain place, for example a kitchen or a living room, into a cubic geometrical unit. The collected items, originally gathered from hundreds of different homes, are precisely stacked into the empty spaces of other larger items, a process that repeats itself until all the objects are carefully packed into one single tight sculptural form. This transformation addresses questions about history, life and space. The sculptures hold stories of compressed worlds from a time gone by, and the function has been forced to give in for the notions of color and shape.”

Photos Michael Johansson | Conceptual art and installations

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Diary photo entry

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Diary 100310

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Quote on  style by the French Poet, Novelist, Actor, Film Director and Painter Jean Cocteau  (1889-1963)

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Zoom:  W&V Collection Spring/Summer 2010.

Style: Melted top: T 10-64-01,

Style: Folded seam skirt: S 10-63-10

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection S/S  10

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The monumental installations created by ,the New York based artist, Spencer Tunick are an inspiring and interesting dialogue between the naked human body and the public spaces they are placed in. But, at the same time, they are also a dialogue between the individual human and the larger group. By taking pictures of hundreds and sometimes thousands of naked bodies at specific locations he transforms human individuals to sculptural objects. By doing this he shows and opens a new point of view or perception of humans, nature and architecture.

In his early work he focussed more on individual nude bodies or small groups. This made these works more intimate compared to the massive installations for which he is now known. His work can be considered as a crossover between an installation and a performance.

Spencer Tunick:
“A body is a living entity. It represents life, freedom, sensuality, and it is a mechanism to carry out our thoughts. A body is always beautiful to me. It depends on the individual work and what I do with it and what kind of idea lies behind it — if age matters or not. But in my group works, the only difference is how far people can go if it rains, snows etc.”

On March 1st, 2010 he created his latest work. Tunick set up a series of installations titled “The Base” on the Sydney Opera House Forecourt and inside the Opera House. These installations were carried out as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and were Tunick’s first large-scale installation in Sydney, with over 5,200 participants.

In the below video by Ralph Goertz, Spencer Tunick was followed by the Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie during the creation of his installation at the Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf in 2006.

Photos top Spencer Tunick | Photo centre Reuters | Photo bottom Wood/Getty | Video by Ralph Goertz, Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie

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A Shaded View on Fashion Film is a very interesting fashion film festival founded, curated and organised by international fashion icon and celebrated blogger Diane Pernet in cooperation with her co-producers David Herman and Antoine Asseraf. The festival was born in 2008 and back then launched at the Jeu de Paume during the last three days of the Avedon exhibition.

 In this travelling festival she  combines two of her big passions: film and fashion.

Diane Pernet on the subject:
“I would love fashion films to replace fashion shows but in reality I think a major change like that will take quite some time. Certain designers create spectacular fashion shows like Galliano or McQueen, but for the most part watching male and female models walk up and down the catwalk feels a bit last century to me. I think a fashion film is a new way to express a collection. What interests me is the intersection between fashion and film. For the near future fashion film is an additional way of experiencing fashion.”

A shaded view on fashion film festival 2009 trailer

ASVOFF is a festival including a film selection & competition, documentaries, features and installations. The common thread that binds this diverse program is the use of fashion, beauty and/or style as the principal subject, theme or cinematic aesthetic. The festival is a study in the drama, power and personification that fashion evokes and commands on screen. It tries to shake up the old rules of fashion by putting the focus on the moving image, in an industry long dominated by the “still” photographic medium.

Upcoming Festival tour dates and locations:
New York March 5th 2010 as part of F Scope art fair
Moscow, April 3rd 2010 as part of Russia Fashion Week
Hyères fashion festival, April 30th to May 30th 2010 Villa Noailles, Hyères

A shaded view on fashion film festival award

Photos and video Diane Pernet | A shaded view on fashion film festival | A shaded view on fashion blog| Nunzia Garoffolo interview

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Voici Paris: Haute Couture is a major exhibition which showcases the history of haute couture.

The exhibition recounts, on an inspiring way, the story of couture, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century. This historical story is told by exclusive creations made by top designers, but also design drawings, accessories, fabric samples/swatches, embroideries, moving images and photographic material.

The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag owns one of the largest fashion collections in Europe, in which many of the well known couture houses are represented. It includes early pieces of couturiers like Worth, Poiret and Vionnet who where the forerunners of couturiers but also createurs (designers fashion) like we know them nowadays. The collection also contains famous or iconic items like for example the original pink Givenchy dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Next to the historical showcase of haute couture the exhibition highlights contemporary couture. Renowned fashion houses, such as Dior, Chanel, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier, have loaned exclusive couture creations from their most recent collections.In a parallel to the international history of couture the exhibition features also the history of Dutch couture and shows the work of notable dutch couturiers like Frans Molenaar and Fong Leng but also work from the new generation of Dutch couturiers like Jan Taminiau.

The curator and art director of the exhibition is Maarten Spruyt, who was also responsible for previous fashion exhibitions for the Gemeentemuseum, including Fashion NL: the next generation (2006), Hague Court Fashions (2007) and The Ideal Man (2008).  This exhibition  is part of Holland Art Cities and it will run untill 6th June 2010.

 
Photo top by Marc de Groot | Gemeentemuseum The Hague

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Diary photo entry: Inner-sleeve dress snapshot

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Diary 240210

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Warmenhoven & Venderbos invite you to discover the Spring Summer 2010 Collection.

“Some conceptual keywords and key-phrases for the collection are: Imprints of skin , imprints of garments , imprints of sizes. Distortion of or between translation results in distortion between the layers. Meaning and shape are redefined. Shape follows individual body and mind.”

• Find the W&V  S/S 10 collection here on the website.

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Website: collection S/S 10

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I will not make any more boring Art is an early piece of conceptual text art by John Baldessari but it still has not lost its impact nowadays. It demonstrate his thinking at the time and his developing interest in Conceptual art.

In 1971, Baldessari was commissioned by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada to create an original, on-site work. Unable to make the journey himself, he suggested that the students voluntarily write the phrase “I will not make any more boring art” on the gallery walls. Baldessari committed his own version of the piece on videotape. Like an errant schoolboy, he dutifully writes, “I will not make any more boring art” over and over again in a notebook for the duration of the tape. In an ironic disjunction of form and content, Baldessari’s methodical, repetitive exercise deliberately contradicts the point of the lesson to refrain from creating boring art.

I will not make any more boring Art is typical of Baldessari’s work, for not only does it contain humor, but it is also a strategy, a set of conditions, a directive, a paradoxical statement, and a commentary on the art world with which it is involved. Like all his work to date, it addresses, on many complex levels, issues about art, language, games and the world at large.

Photos and video John Baldessari | Sources: Electronic Arts Intermix | MoMA collection | Ubuweb

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