イントロダクションIntroduction

Rebellious and spirited designer Yohji Yamamoto has been surprising and stirring up the fashion world for decades, shunning its fluctuating trends in favour of a more timeless style. This exhibition, Painting and Weaving Opportunity, explores the true essence and charm of this exceptional designer who, after forty years in the business, is still producing stunningly original creations.

With his recent collections, Yamamoto has sought to incorporate paintings into his clothing. The title, Painting and Weaving Opportunity, was thought up by self-styled ‘editorial engineer’ Seigow Matsuoka at Yamamoto’s request. It represents the possibilities presented by collaboration between painting and ‘woven’ textiles, i.e. clothes. It is not just the conjunction between painting and fashion that the exhibition presents, but also that between 2D and 3D, men and women, and other oppositions. The essential nature of all of these conjunctions is that of simultaneous repulsion and attraction, an inescapable, inevitable, and in many ways dangerous bond, which touches the very heart of creation.

As well as hitherto unseen paintings and installations by Yamamoto, the exhibition features Yuuka Asakura, the young artist who has been bringing passion to Yohji Yamamoto collections for the past few seasons. The works of these two artists confront one another and interact, generating new possibilities for fresh creation within the exhibition space. Expect to witness collision and fusion, despair and confrontation, coexistence, momentary happenings, switching of places, yearning, and hints toward eternity.