WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS Blog » Body

Body Pressure | Conceptual performance art by Bruce Nauman

W&V — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:30:32 +0000

Body Pressure is an art piece by Bruce Nauman from 1974 which basically is a mix between conceptual text art and performance art. The work invites the spectator to become the performer. The physical form of the work is a simple poster which serves more as an igniter as it gives the performers a set of typed out instructions for merging their bodies with an architectural surface. Body Pressure is, aside from the physical experience, also a mental journey which challenges the performers to think about the physical aspects and limitations of their own bodies and travel beyond these limitations in their minds.

Below follows the text of the poster:

Body Pressure

Press as much of the front surface of
your body (palms in or out, left or right cheek)
against the wall as possible.

Press very hard and concentrate.

Form an image of yourself (suppose you
had just stepped forward) on the
opposite side of the wall pressing
back against the wall very hard.

Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.

(the image of pressing very hard)
press your front surface and back surface
toward each other and begin to ignore or
block the thickness of the wall. (remove
the wall)

Think how various parts of your body
press against the wall; which parts
touch and which do not.

Consider the parts of your back which
press against the wall; press hard and
feel how the front and back of your
body press together.

Concentrate on the tension in the muscles,
pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider
body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).

This may become a very erotic exercise.

Work by Bruce Nauman | Photos by Bruce Nauman, top: Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, centre: Jacob Birken

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Vangelis Paterakis | Shadow life

W&V — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:45:04 +0000

Vangelis Paterakis is a Greek photographer and artist. For his commissioned work he collaborated often on editorials for magazines and with advertising companies.

Shadow life is a second series of art photos after his shadow series.
Vangelis Paterakis says himself about this work:
“It is a second creation of organisms that make up an unnoticed realm of life as we don’t know it”
With Shadow Life Vangelis Paterakis continues seeking bodies that give birth to new figures and shadows that rise new souls. His pictures remain familiar and their figures emit an instant mood for creation, annihilating the stillness of the picture offering to the spectator a side of life far from its daily perception. He gives shape to the human shadow that immaterial element of us all an indefinite subject that appears when light strikes a surface only to then melt away and blend in with the surrounding surfaces. The concept and images create a fascinating space for philosophical reflections and remind us of a line written by the Swiss thinker Carl Justav Jung:
“Contact with our shadows allows us to identify more closely with ourselves and touch a profound part of very being.”

Photos Vangelis Paterakis | Studio Paterakis | Shadow and Shadow life series

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Zoom | layered contrasts in white and nude tones

W&V — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:16:21 +0000

Zoom | layered contrasts in white and nude tones

The melting of two different garment types into one piece results into a feminine double layered, mixed fabric top and skirt in cool summer white and nude tone.

Style | Top: T 10-60-34
Style | Skirt: S 10-78-34

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer 2010

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Irving Penn retrospective exhibition: Portraits

W&V — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:37:50 +0000

The National Portrait Gallery in London has dedicated a retrospective exhibition to the work of one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated photographers, Irving Penn (1917-2009).

The exhibition is brought together from major international collections and includes over 120 silver and platinum prints, many vintage, ranging from his portraits for Vogue magazine in the 1940s to some of his last work. The exhibition is a survey of Penn’s portraits of major cultural figures from the worlds of literature, Fashion, music and the visual and performing arts brought together from many international collections. Portraits include Truman Capote, Salvador Dalì, Marlene Dietrich, Christian Dior, T.S. Eliot, Duke Ellington, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicole Kidman, Willem de Kooning, Kate Moss, Jessye Norman, Rudolph Nureyev, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso, Harold Pinter, Igor Stravinsky, and Tennessee Williams.

Penn’s photographs stand out for their elegance, the clean look of their images, a strong contrast between subject and background and a “less is more” aesthetic. These are the distinctive features of an oeuvre that marked and captured an epoch. The power of Irving Penn’s visual language is often found in the details and shades of his portraits. Through his sublime techniques of composition, light and printing, the character of his subjects is stripped naked before the camera lens.

Irving Penn said in 1975:
“Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world… very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe.”

The exhibition in the The National Portrait Gallery in London will run until the 6Th of June 2010 and will travel afterwards to Rome’s Palazzo delle Esposizioni where it will be on display from the 1st of July to 19Th of September 2010.

Photos: Irving Penn | Photo top and 6Th photo: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters | Photo bottom: Cate Gillon/Getty Images | The National Portrait Gallery

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W&V zoom Collection Spring/Summer 2010

W&V — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:07:22 +0000

Zoom: W&V Collection Spring/Summer 2010

Summer neutral tones. “Pinched” waisted tailoring with leather details as markers. Style: Top: T 10-51-33, Skirt: S 10-53-33

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer 2010

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W&V zoom Collection Spring/Summer 2010

W&V — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:03:22 +0000

Zoom: W&V Collection Spring/Summer 2010

Style: Dress: D 10-47-32

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer 2010

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W&V zoom Collection Spring/Summer 2010: nude tones

W&V — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:56:05 +0000

Zoom: W&V Collection Spring/Summer 2010: nude and neutral tones and colours.

Style: Colbert: C 10-58-34,

Style: skirt: S 10-78-34

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer 2010

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Zoom Collection Spring/Summer 2010

W&V — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:46:23 +0000

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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Spencer Tunick major installations

W&V — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:38:27 +0000

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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Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective

W&V — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:50:36 +0000

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

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