KOZABURO Spring/Summer 2024 at NYFW

 
 

Mythical creatures serve as a universal source of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration, evident throughout the KOZABURO Spring Summer 2024 collection. This essence finds expression in garment construction, graphic patterns, and intricate embellishments. Curved lines evoke the undulating contours of sand dunes, while textures and fluidity capture the essence of dragons and serpents.

This collection transcends the constraints of historical clothing norms, embracing 3D-cut pants and styles that defy convention. The Chinese zodiac and the Uroboros symbol, representing rebirth and the future, permeate the collection, both structurally and in attitude.

Akasaka's reverence for ancient aesthetics extends to contemporary fabric choices. SS2024 incorporates a capsule collection produced in collaboration with cycora® by AmbercycleTM—a newly regenerated material derived from disassembled end-of-life clothing and textiles. This circular approach aligns seamlessly with the traditional Japanese weaving technique of Sakiori, a hallmark of KOZABURO, where used strips of fabric are woven into new textile creations.

The runway presentation features a soft serpent sculpture with scales crafted from upcycled denim, symbolizing the eternal cycle. Two drummers, uniting at the point of infinity, symbolize a universal language of communication, ceremony, and spirituality, recalling a past Tokyo show with Taiko drummers.

KOZABURO's Spring Summer 2024 collection is a harmonious mosaic of inspiration, reflecting a decade of creative community and cultural exploration in the United States, a testament to Akasaka's artistic journey.

Opening of Ai Weiwei's 'Zodiac' @ Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles

Jeffrey Deitch has just opened his new Los Angeles gallery with a museum-scale exhibition entitled, Zodiac, by Ai Weiwei. This inaugural exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery Los Angeles, is one of three major exhibitions by the artist concurrently on view in Los Angeles.

The center of the space is filled by one of the artist’s most remarkable works, Stools (2013), comprised of 5,929 wooden stools from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties and the Republican period, gathered from villages across northern China. Very few of these stools remain in Chinese households today, but they were once a ubiquitous staple of domestic life. Each stool reveals traces of use and evokes the experience of generations of lives. Ai Weiwei admires the stools for their simple design and solid structure, a design language that remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Complementing the stools is a new series of Zodiac works composed from thousands of plastic LEGO bricks. The set of twelve works incorporates imagery from two well-known series by the artist. The twelve LEGO Zodiac animal heads deriving from his sculpture series Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads (2010) are overlaid onto twelve landscapes and monuments from Ai’s Study of Perspective (1995–2003) series of photographs. He appreciates how LEGO is accessible to everyone, especially young people. His use of LEGO components is a response to the pixelated structure of digital images.

Both the Stools and the Zodiac installations are assembled from accumulated elements, a creative method that Ai has employed in many of his best-known works. His interest in accumulation and collecting relates to his desire to understand how an individual relates to society, to memory, and to objects that evoke a particular time. His use of antique stools and modern LEGO bricks are examples of how his art redefines these elements, subverting their history and nature.

The sculpture Grapes (2017) reassembles the stools into a completely different shape but uses the original structural logic so that it remains true to its original form. It provides a graceful and whimsical counterpoint to the accumulation of the 5,929 stools. Zodiac is on view through January 5, 2019 at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery 925 N Orange Drive, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Picasso the Snake

I'm sitting at JFK airport waiting for a puddle jumper to Burlington, Vermont. Its new year's day. The great year of the Rabbit has begun. In the Vietnamese zodiac, the cat takes the place of the rabbit. I find it incredibly fascinating the transmutation of animal spirits to interpret our human personalities and the age in which we live.   Its as if we live vicariously through their mystery, whilst captivated by their obliviousness to their own power and magic. As we enter the year of the Rabbit I think of one the greatest personalities of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso; and his painting entitled Cat Devouring a Bird and a photograph of him holding his pet owl.  Pablo Picasso was born in the year of the Snake.  That says a lot. Or does it?  I believe that the mystical powers of animals to represent cycles, years, epochs and their cosmic associations is more real than we imagine. If in the Chinese Zodiac the Rabbit is interpreted as agile, versatile, abundant, artistic, and compassionate than why can't we hope that in fact our lives in the the new year will be the same.  The motto for the year of the Rabbit is "I Retreat."  Hard to do in an airport with thousands of frantic, confused, wanderlust travelers.  In the Chinese Zodiac each animal has a ruling hour of the day.  The rabbit's ruling hours are between 5 and 7 a.m.  Sunrise. Its currently half past 6 in the morning Eastern time.  Today we are all Rabbits in one strange momentary paroxysm, in the inexorable gravity, the great miasma, always being pulled closer and farther away.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre