Fashion humor and ressurection: Beyond flesh and death

Funshion: please click on the image!













Photos: http://www.goaheadrobus.com/

This concept is about fun in fashion. About fashion irreverence and playfulness as an aesthetic proposal.

Funshion can ne seen as the new "casual wear", because after all isn't casual about fun and easiness? Well now, it is also being irreverent and playful.

The Funshion concept can be attributed to the Danish collaborative project called "Go Ahead Rob Us". It consists of two girls Anne Werner and Stine Tranekaer who make clothes and art installations amongst others, but most importantly, they make fun a tangible design position.

An absurd and compelling one that challenges shapes, materials, symbols, and any given assumptions, starting off by the name of their collective: "Go Ahead Rob Us".

Its trademark is a distinctive pop light spirited way to approach fashion and fine arts.

Fabrics and shapes are turned into pretty much anything, as Jaconfetti knows. The Danish Hip Hop duo got their album cover and some clothes made by "Go ahead..." collective.

Ladies your Funshion is taken seriously!

www.myspace.com/jaconfetti

Popsychedelik xkizofriends

Glam Street Pop Fun

The Clubkids are gone, yet their art legacy is still around. Popsychedelik xkizofriendx concept refers to the "glossy street pop frenetic" aesthetic the Clubkids developed and established.

The photos portray chaos, overcrowded spaces with colors, textures, movement, multi-dimensions and lots of joy and fun. Makes me think about David Chapelle's work; though the Clubkids seem more real as their work and life were closely intertwined. Is their work a party diary?

The Clubkids' work also remind me of Mariko Mori's piece called "The Birth of a star" (1995) As Christian Haye "states: "Mori’s work tends to make one wonder whether the art world’s current taste is for arty fashion or fashionable art". Ultimately Mori is bridging pop culture, art and fashion by making it relative, as unimportant but ultimately giving it a proper place and moment in time.

Beyond the pop crafted xkizophrenic photos of the Clubkids, I believe they also portrayed the more open ways in which people are doing things today. We are witnessing passion turning into profession, creativity turning into careers' platforms. This is not a new phenomenon, just a very tangible one. So keep on following your guts kids!

Photos:

Clubkids: www.myspace.com/joeyelgersma
Mariko Mori: http://www.mcachicago.org/

Christian Haye: 24Back2 Mariko Mori

http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/24back2_mariko_mori/

Vain transcendence: Fashion Delirium

Transcendent Delirium

Don Slater states in his book Consumer Culture and Modernity (1997) : The notion of "consumer culture" implies that, in the modern world, core social practices and cultural values, ideas, aspirations and identities are defined and oriented in relation to consumption rather than other social dimension such as work, or ..., religion... " implying we have turned into an utilitarian individualized communities devoted and driven by self-interests and material pursuits as Nabil Echchaibi suggests. http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/slater.htm

The concept of Transcendent Delirium addresses the need and respective consecutive action that some of us experience when it comes to fashion. It is not about shopping, but rather "craving" fashion pieces that to our understanding would complement us by providing a sense of empowerment. It might be an illusion, but don't we need to dream more nowadays?

What's wrong with fashion deliriums? with a fever of commoditizing ourselves with precious items?

Fashion is playful, empowering, triggering our senses and selves in order to feel good about a moment. It offers a sort of transcedence to people. It exalts individuality and creates a new democratizing order and approach to ideals, a transformative one; a way to understand the future from the vanity and presence of the now as Gilles Lipovetsky advocates.

Photos: Lil Kim by David Lachapelle at http://www.brandspankingnew.net/

http://www.sisley.com/

Urban canvas: skin and concrete

The transition from graffiti to tattoo

This concept refers to the transition of graffiti from the walls of the cities onto the skin of people. It talks about the evolution of tattoo due to influence of the graphical language of graffiti, among others, allowing people to appropriate it and wear it in more lively ways.

We live in graphical era, where icons of brands and media are constantly shaping our taste. They populate the cities and talk about the level of expression and marketing affluence, and therefore the economic moment a city is going through.

Photos:

http://www.fiveprime.org/ Spongebob by KAWS

http://www.hypebeast.com/ Marc Jacobs by Terry Richardson

Are we turning into living advertising? Or maybe just into our own canvas, where we reflect and reflex our ways to experience and live cities without being ignored, even if you are Marc Jacobs.

Splash some Electro Performance

Fischerspooner

Photos: www.myspace.com/fischerspooner

Fischerspooner has been defined as an"Electroclash duo performance". Its compelling and strong art proposal consists of music, theater, fashion, performance, film and photography. It is hard to pick one of the different creative outlets they work with as their strongest, as I believe the all are integrated, in balance, and overall building blocks to their unique artistic offering.

Their work has been shown in art galleries and music halls around the world. They are represented by the music label Kitsune and the Deitch Project Gallery in NYC, both very niche and exquisite names in their own domains.

This versatile duo was created by Casey Spooner and Warren Fischer in 1998. Their art pop performance project is not only created but staged by them. Meaning that they act as artists, producing fresh ideas, and staging them involving dance, theater, fashion, music etc.. as a way to materialize and communicate their work.

Fischerspooner's work is not a static art piece. It is in motion by integrating different art languages and media, and reaching therefore broader audiences. It redefines the role of artists and the way they engage and connect with audiences. They challenge the way of understanding creative disciplines and its potential when conciving them as one.

Dare to get hooked to http://www.myspace.com/fischerspooner !

Raw Beauty

Fleshuality

Photo: http://www.terryrichardson.com/

Terry Richardson is one of my favorite photographers. I particularly like his work as I believe, he is redefining beauty canons. To me, Terry Richardson's beauty is RAW. It consists of pores, body hair, nipples, and in general taboo body parts. His work has a strong and playful eroticism, with a great sense of humor.


Fleshuality is a concept that refers to Richardson' s "raw" skin and flesh, and the strong sexual expression and grace of his work.

Photo: Terry Richardson featuring Alex Bolotow. Purple Magazine

The "fleshuality" of Richardson equalizes ordinary people and celebrities posing for him. The body, or flesh and its rawness, along with provoking expression is what matters.

His raw, yet sensual language, embodies the spirit of an "America" that is ready for new beauty archetypes and ways of looking at things. An example is the clothing brand "American Apparel" that produces its own advertising, and it is known for being provocative and controversial.
Photo: www.americanappareal.net

Hyperhumans

Photos: http://www.lucyandbart.blogspot.com/

Hyperhumans

Hyperhumans is a concept that looks into the representations of the dialectic between men and technology and its outcome: mutation.

The concept explores the transformation from the fusion of the technology into the body, as an accessory. This transformation is providing a new meaning to the body. Its mass and structure have been affected so they inhabit the space differently, I call them living sculptures.

Lucy and Bart

The work of Lucy and Bart would help me to explain the concept of Living Sculptures, using the body as a tool to defy the body itself . It becomes a means to define humans mass, movement, gravity and spatial limits, as well as its purpose and potential.

Their work can be described as Hyperhumans, where extremities are prolonged, denoting gracious possibilities and mutations of the human body. Body as a tool of men to achieve, to become a faster performer, an adaptable specie, a volatile material.

Are men evolving into a transcendent force, acquiring machine and creatures’ attributes in order to succeed in a technological era?

Lucy and Bart are triggering us to think about spatial and body referents differently. Their work question creative disciplines’ boundaries, and transforms the space into body architecture, as a way to inhabit a context, with a more meaningful and adaptable presence.