Silent voice | 300×240×45cm | used white clothes

Japanese artist Naoko Yoshimoto began her career studying psychology at the University of Kyoto but moved gradually after it more into art. Her main medium are clothing and textiles. She creates very interesting and strong conceptual sculptures and installations made from garments like for example dresses, tops and trousers.

In the early days as she began collecting these clothes she saw them a bit as symbols of the people living in the places where she met the clothes. She imagined the histories behind them. Touching these used garments, gave her the idea she gained a feeling for the memories of these people and their everyday lives which the garments used to touch, a feeling that could not be communicated by words. But after while this gave her an uneasy feeling as she realized that she could imagine the people and the everyday life of the place she visited, but that she could not directly touch them. There was a feeling of distance and uncertainties. These thoughts had great influence of her current work and made sure she shifted even more towards a conceptual approach in her work.

In some of her current works like for example ” silent voice”, “shadow portrait” or “history behind clothes” she removes the colour of garments by bleaching or uses white coloured garments and compresses and condenses these “white shaded” clothes and transforms them into building blocks for her conceptual sculptures. These works depict conventional as well as more abstract objects and give an interesting social commentary which is created by the medium and its carrier.

 White coffin | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

 White coffin detail | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

 Shadow portrait | 40×640×12cm | used white clothes

 White coffin | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

Shadow portrait | 40×640×12cm | used white clothes

 White coffin | 150×130×180cm | used white shirts

 River of oblivion detail | bleached clothes

 River of oblivion | bleached clothes

Photos Naoko Yoshimoto | conceptual clothing sculptures

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

Barcode stripes and ”sized” double layers.

Photo top> style: Top: T 10-70-10, Skirt: S 10-80-10

Photo bottom> style: Top: T 10-68-10

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer  2010

Bride fight is an already older but still very unique and interesting installation by American artist E.V. Day (1967, New York). She Used heavy-duty fishing line and hardware to reassembled clothing items which where untangled into small pieces.

Taking as her subject an eruption in the traditional social fabric the idea of two “glowing” brides locked in mortal combat E.V. Day touches something dark in the American social unconscious. Her work does link to reality television shows about brides-to-be, like Bridezilla, where tension gets to a boiling-point because of all the planning and frustration. But although E.V. Day’s piece may trigger such fetishistic responses it is a work primarily characterized by the humor and anxiety that accompanies a transformation of tradition. Fierce but nonetheless liberating, Bride Fight feels more like the jouissance of exploded boundaries than the pathology of confined ones.

The bride fight installation developed from a series of installations called Exploding Couture, begun in 1999, in which Day suspended women’s dresses in space. For example, in Bombshell (1999), exhibited at the 2000 Whitney Biennial, Day took a piece of iconic attire (Marilyn Monroe’s white halter dress) and arranged it to feel as if the forces of the implied figure are so powerful that the garment literally blows off, as if outgrowing its stereotype.

The visual result of the works are extremely light sculptures with architectural features.

Photos: E.V. Day | Lever House, New York

Zoom:  Warmenhoven & Venderbos Collection Spring/Summer 2010

Merge and melt of two dress types into one piece, accentuated by colour contrast. The ”shadow area” between the shapes has been highlighted by translating it into a graphic stripe design. Leather string detail at collar. A futuristic look in  a stylish feminine shape and cut.

Style: Dress: D 10-66-01

WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS | Collection Spring /Summer  2010