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

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

The NRW Forum in Düsseldorf has organised a major retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs. Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) dominated photography in the late twentieth century and paved the way for the recognition of photography as an art form in its own right. Both during his life and since his death, Mapplethorpe’s work has been the subject of much controversial debate.His radical portrayals of nudity and sexual acts were always controversial; some of his photos caused a stir and frequently resulted in protests outside exhibitions. Above all, Robert Mapplethorpe developed his own photographic style that paid homage to the ideals of perfection and form.

 ‘I look for the perfection of form. I do this in portraits, in photographs of penises, in photographs of flowers.’

 The fact that the photographs are displayed on snow-white walls underpins this view of his work and consciously moves away from the coy Boudoir-style presentation of his photographs on lilac and purple walls a dominant feature of exhibitions of Mapplethorpe’s work for many years and opens up the work to a more concept-based, minimalist view of things.

The exhibition in the NRW Forum covers all areas of Mapplethorpe’s work, from portraits and self-portraits, homosexuality, nudes, flowers and the quintessence of his oeuvre the photographic images of sculptures, including early Polaroids. It will run until 15 August 2010.

Trailer of the film Robert Mapplethorpe “Shapes”  by Ralph Goertz | IKS-Medienarchiv

Top photo: Robert Mapplethorpe at his Whitney Retrospective 1988 by Jonathan Becker, Vanity Fair

Photos by Robert Mapplethorpe | Top Photo by Jonathan Becker, Vanity Fair | Video by Ralph Goertz

Body moulds and cloned in black. Conceptual objects: exact tailored copies of the bodies of Warmenhoven & Venderbos translated into a rubber coated fabric and black leather.

From the WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS archives | Body moulds

C-AW1011 design diary photo entry. Body, skin, fabric,movement,time,distortion,interaction.

Fashion.

Arrival sales sample collection Autumn/Winter 2010/2011.

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WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Diary 170110