Sat April 17, 2021
Textile Arts Council Saturday Lecture: Embracing the In-Between: Comme des Garçon, Butoh, and Ma
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Through the analysis of documentaries, archives, reviews, contemporary dance, and fashion in Japan, this presentation reveals how the dance and costumes of Butoh anticipated the design aesthetic of Comme des Garçons and how Kawakubo and Butoh utilize Japan's sartorial history and philosophy to challenge western perceptions of Art and Fashion.
Rei Kawakubo, founder and artistic director of Comme des Garçons, concedes her work is influenced by the Japanese Zen Buddhist concepts of mu, or emptiness, and ma, the space within the emptiness. Another Japanese art form that sartorially reflects ma and mu is in Butoh, a dance partially envisioned as a reaction to the Western influence that had permeated Japanese culture after World War Two. Founded in 1959 by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the dance of Butoh was an exploration of the grotesque, space, the body, and the polarities of ma.
While Hijikata explored space around the body with his own body, Kawakubo also responded to space around the body with her fantastical new shapes with her "Lumps and Bumps" collection, otherwise known as "Body Meet Dress - Dress Meet Body". By having "no meaning", embracing mu, ma, and that place in-between, Rei Kawakubo's clothes are conceptually limitless with possibilities.
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Rei Kawakubo, founder and artistic director of Comme des Garçons, concedes her work is influenced by the Japanese Zen Buddhist concepts of mu, or emptiness, and ma, the space within the emptiness. Another Japanese art form that sartorially reflects ma and mu is in Butoh, a dance partially envisioned as a reaction to the Western influence that had permeated Japanese culture after World War Two. Founded in 1959 by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the dance of Butoh was an exploration of the grotesque, space, the body, and the polarities of ma.
While Hijikata explored space around the body with his own body, Kawakubo also responded to space around the body with her fantastical new shapes with her "Lumps and Bumps" collection, otherwise known as "Body Meet Dress - Dress Meet Body". By having "no meaning", embracing mu, ma, and that place in-between, Rei Kawakubo's clothes are conceptually limitless with possibilities.
Through the analysis of documentaries, archives, reviews, contemporary dance, and fashion in Japan, this presentation reveals how the dance and costumes of Butoh anticipated the design aesthetic of Comme des Garçons and how Kawakubo and Butoh utilize Japan's sartorial history and philosophy to challenge western perceptions of Art and Fashion.
Rei Kawakubo, founder and artistic director of Comme des Garçons, concedes her work is influenced by the Japanese Zen Buddhist concepts of mu, or emptiness, and ma, the space within the emptiness. Another Japanese art form that sartorially reflects ma and mu is in Butoh, a dance partially envisioned as a reaction to the Western influence that had permeated Japanese culture after World War Two. Founded in 1959 by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the dance of Butoh was an exploration of the grotesque, space, the body, and the polarities of ma.
While Hijikata explored space around the body with his own body, Kawakubo also responded to space around the body with her fantastical new shapes with her "Lumps and Bumps" collection, otherwise known as "Body Meet Dress - Dress Meet Body". By having "no meaning", embracing mu, ma, and that place in-between, Rei Kawakubo's clothes are conceptually limitless with possibilities.
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Rei Kawakubo, founder and artistic director of Comme des Garçons, concedes her work is influenced by the Japanese Zen Buddhist concepts of mu, or emptiness, and ma, the space within the emptiness. Another Japanese art form that sartorially reflects ma and mu is in Butoh, a dance partially envisioned as a reaction to the Western influence that had permeated Japanese culture after World War Two. Founded in 1959 by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the dance of Butoh was an exploration of the grotesque, space, the body, and the polarities of ma.
While Hijikata explored space around the body with his own body, Kawakubo also responded to space around the body with her fantastical new shapes with her "Lumps and Bumps" collection, otherwise known as "Body Meet Dress - Dress Meet Body". By having "no meaning", embracing mu, ma, and that place in-between, Rei Kawakubo's clothes are conceptually limitless with possibilities.
show less
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de Young Museum
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50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118
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