Hyper Hyper

Ed Ruscha Busted Glass, 2007

The most poetic and beautiful work, recently rediscovered in a book shelf in New York. Fruit juice stains on moiré evolved into transparent fractures drawn on grainy paper. Fragile and painstaking.
/HORST

Floating/Nothingness

1. Yrjö Edelmann Fundamental Aspects Of Floating Parcel, 2006
2. Yrjö Edelmann Flashlighted Floated Parcel In Stormy Ocean And Sky, 2007
3. Ed Ruscha Blue Bowling Ball, 1972
4. Ed Ruscha Black And Pink Ball, 1972

Yrjö and Ed. Packages and bowling. Photo-realism and photo-realism. Of things that do not exist. Wafting in the surrealist space of fiction projected onto realist landscapes. It is the summary of the world we live in.
/HORST

ER - A - (S...)ER

1. Michael Krebber Systemic Relevance, 2014
2. Jil Sander Fall/Winter 1998
3. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 1996
4. Ed Ruscha Rabbit, 1986

Flying from Krebber to Ruscha via Sander. For obvious reasons, I am still faithful to the brand. Although left anonymous now. But besides all personality talk, it is the moment and concept that count.
/HORST

Post Milan II

A 'False Encyclopaedia' double feature with Alex Fury, discussing:
Prada Spring/Summer 2014

Tropical prints, looser, loucher shapes, a twenty-first century re-imagining of a twentieth-century American vacation. It was the fantasy rather than the reality of a Hawaii holiday that Prada was articulating for summer, I reckon.

Toting those suitcases longingly with your office drone suiting, trousers loosened up, that forties feel. Burnt umber and burgundy and evergreen and slithery satin bomber-jackets, all all those carnation and hibiscus prints plastered over everything. There was something of the land-locked, Tikki-tourist, those mid-century, middle-class middle-Americans who never made it to the tropics, but dreamed ceaselessly about it nevertheless. The sweaters with sunset scenes intarsia-knit into them were postcards - 'wish we were there', rather than 'wish you were here'. Just like the cheesecake pin-ups they'll never have, and those good-looking girls they'll never get, flouncing after them in flirtatious, diamanté-strewn showgirl dresses.

Mrs Prada's kick was unattainable fantasy. Except, it was her fantasy of that unattainable fantasy. And you can have it, at a price.
/ALEX

At least the sleeve layering added a moment of abstraction within an über-literal collection that got stuck in 1940s nostalgia - when the exotic image of Polyn-Asia was Americanised in memorabilia and gas station postcard kitsch. Here, irony reveals itself as not 'pretending to pretend' but 'being what is': derisory, pathetic, mediocre (to quote Mehdi Belhaj Kacem). I'd like to burn those memories.
/HORST








1. Prada Spring/Summer 2014
2. Elvis Presley Blue Hawaii, 1961
3. Businessman 1950s
4. Rolf Armstrong Sunny Skies, 1953
5. Roy Lichtenstein Sunrise, 1984
6. Wassily Kandinsky Tension In Red, 1926
7. Ed Ruscha Burning Gas Station, 1966
8. Prada Spring/Summer 2014

All about Alex Fury

Post Milan, Première

A 'False Encyclopaedia' double feature with Rudy Katoch, discussing:
Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2014

"In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town,
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
'Til the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round."

The lyrics from "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" echo. Neither the orange (or fluorescent) details in the piping, shirts or coats; nor the cut-up catwalk forcing models to spin around the space; nor the white looks are important. I am more interested in Jil 'dreaming of a thousand lovers' and today we see thirty-eight of them.

But then, each look refracts. We see each look walk by the polished glass, through the glass itself and reflected upon it. So, we never just see one ensemble at any time. The reflective and refractive quality to the show-as-performance opens up a space to discuss the cultural filter of images—both moving and still—in which we see our world. Cindy Sherman will approve.

This was best seen in looks which can be described as intermezzo—short, connecting looks punctuating the show. The opening look is a good example. You have the all-white suit with the fluorescent piping that alludes to sportswear; as well as, the cropped trouser and the wide-set shoe. Colin McDowell, Carlo Brandelli, Tom Hingston, Jack Tobin and Hywel Davies laughed at the poorly cut trousers and nebulous 'man' from the A/W 2013 show. The cropped silhouette (exemplified by re-fashioning the knickerbocker) or innovative shirt/blouson hybrids emerge as a response.

McDowell claimed that Sander is "an older woman who is trying to capture the Zeitgeist of the young". Sander has captured youth in this collection by the super-position of one idea upon another: sportswear and tailoring. Her success lies within the execution of this simplicity.

As Jil steps out to applause, her image is caught upon the glass. The show ends. I could not help but think of Sherman reflecting upon her refraction as both artist and subject. Jil Sander by Jil Sander.
/RUDY

To me, Jil Sander is an emotional affair. Each and every time defending the entitlement of minimalism. And it became an utmost personal affair. For the first time, a collection made me cry. And surrender. To cropped trouser lengths, to monochrome, mirrored floral prints. To pink salmon, to PVC. To white suits and black socks. To skirt-like shorts and 1990s virtual reality piping. She does not need Raf. Jil Simons turned Jil Sander. Jil is God.
/HORST








1. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2014
2. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2014
3. Gregory Ratoff Intermezzo (Leslie Howard and Ingrid Bergman), 1939
4. Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #56, 1980
5. Ed Ruscha Strength, 1983
6. Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #27, 1979
7. Georg Baselitz Ein moderner Maler (Remix), 2007
8. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2014

All about Rudy Katoch

A Short History Of Typography In Popular Culture V

1. Ed Ruscha Ripe, 1967
2. Junya Watanabe Spring/Summer 2002
3. Ed Ruscha Raw, 1971
4. Junya Watanabe Spring/Summer 2002
5. Ed Ruscha Jelly, 1967
6. Junya Watanabe Spring/Summer 2002
7. Ed Ruscha Hope, 1998
8. Ed Ruscha The Question, 1989
9. Ann Demeulemeester Spring/Summer 2003
10. Ed Ruscha Body And Paint, 1989
11. Ed Ruscha Sea Of Desire (hot sauce on moiré), 1973
12. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2011
13. Alastair Strong Windows, 2011
14. Ed Ruscha The End #1, 1993

"Live, Sin, Hope" - an excerpt of "Body And Paint" by Ed Ruscha and Ann Demeulemeester. "Ripe watermelon, raw ham, jelly peanutbutter" - an exquisite corpse poem by Ed Ruscha and Junya Watanabe. "Sea Of Desire" - an erotic novel by Ed Ruscha and Raf Simons.
/HORST

Moiré Moanings

1. Ed Ruscha We Humans (spinach & egg white on moiré), 1974
2. Alexander van Slobbe Spring/Summer 1999
3. Ed Ruscha Magnetic (blueberry on moiré), 1974
4. Céline Spring/Summer 2011
5. Ed Ruscha Babycakes (blueberry & egg yolk on moiré), 1974
6. Rodarte Fall/Winter 2011

An unresolved trauma and my unfulfilled desire: to wear trompe l'œil metaphors. Moiré as sociologic experiment, food as paint. Letters on canvas, textile as art, clothes as buildings.
/HORST