Two of Japan's Most Visionary & Free Spirited Women

Bringing together two of Japan’s most visionary and free spirited women, an installation from SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima for Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. (2009-2010)

The spacial design by Sejima is reminiscent of the instillation that was held at SCAF Gallery in Sydney earlier this year, but the experience of the curved and subtly reflective space with Rei Kawakubo’s extraordinary shapes and colours floating throughout is overwhelmingly beautiful. The clothes cease to exist as individual garments and become unified as parts of one work, the full effect of which is best experienced from above, on ether side of the museum’s upper level The show makes evident many similarities between the architect and the designer; while Kawakubo shocked the fashion world in the 80s when she presented collections that showed complete disregard for things as fundamental to fashion as finished seams and hems, Sejima is well known for radically reconsidering accepted notions of space and built environments, also demanding thought and participation from anyone who experiences her work.

Separate to the installation there is a section dedicated to the artful interplay between two dimensionality and three dimensionality in Kawakubo’s work. Displaying garments on mannequins alongside photographs of the same garments removed from the body and laid flat, viewers can see how the clothes completely change form when they are on the body. The are virtually unrecognisable in the photographs, reminding us how closely aligned Kawakubo’s work is to the realms of sculpture and architecture.


Source & images from biginjapan.com.au


I like that the exhibition/installation is so spaced out because it give people enough space to interact around the work and immerse into each design with a 360 degree view!