London’s Wellcome Collection presents “Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan”

The idea of “outsider art” typically takes on multiple meanings and associations—underground art, art brut, self-taught, stream of consciousness or even ‘avant-garde’—meaning raw, uninhibited, cutting-edge or just plain aloof. Coined by the eccentric French artist Jean Dubuffet around 1948, the idea refers to an aesthetic for which there is no specified audience and usually made by people on the fringes of society with mental issues or extreme quirks. An excellent new show at London’s Wellcome Collection, featuring the works of 46 troubled spirits suffering from numerous neurological and mental shortcomings, is dedicated to showing outsider art, most of which is sourced from Japan and all of which ripples and rumbles with visual pizzazz.

These exceptional “outsider artists” exist on society’s margins and have all been diagnosed with cognitive, behavioral and developmental disorders. They are all living under the auspices of specialist care facilities where they work with aides and art facilitators. The 300-plus works on display reflect their innermost subjective viewpoints: dreams, phobias, projections and subconscious material; their perceptions of the world around them; and the values and people to which they attribute meaning. Like much of the Wellcome Collection’s necromantic and nerve-jangling content (recently it showcased artwork about brains, death and organs), this show is jaunty, curious, stimulating and even healing.

Masao Obata’s colorful doodles done in blood-red crayon on cardboard depict scenes of sweet couples canoodling, reflecting his lifelong yearning for a significant other or soulmate. A video of him poignantly shows his yearning: donning a red tracksuit, red trousers, a dapper red shirt and a thick raspberry belt (red is clearly his chromatic signifier), he blithely colors in a couple’s portrait. He seems isolated and estranged yet sweet, attentive and heart-felt. “When are you happiest?” someone in the video asks? “When I’m working,” he says, while steadfastly absorbed in his own process of art-making.

Takako Shibata’s slightly despondent drawings, which depict her mother’s face expanding as the rest of her body contracts, warps and withers, is indicative of an emotional absence in her life and a longing, perhaps, for her mother’s adoration. She seems to be particularly interested in how perception works and the meaning of memories and emotions. So, for instance, the different forms her mother takes appear to symbolize the possible mental associations with which the mind manifests, overlays and represses.

Marie Suzuki conjures lurid and luminous images of sex using the simplest implements: ballpoint pens. Depicting an abstract range of anatomy, genitalia and sexual innuendo, Suzuki gives us demon babies gestating in the womb, a blind-folded woman in the presence of sinister eyes with knives, hands and eyeless infants. A disturbing vision, no doubt, embodying her inner-sense of torment and doom and suggesting that the artist may have been maltreated or molested in her youth.

The curators’ approach is intently non-biographical; artists’ works are, for the most part, presented without name or narration and viewers are left to contemplate the nature and meaning of the work for themselves. Puzzling, provocative and pedagogical, the result is rewarding and psychically rupturing.

The most impressive aspect of the show is the high quality and ingenuity of the art. Shota Katsube’s exuberant and raffish army of action figures is engineered from garbage bag twisties and represents a true quotidian tour de force. Takuyo Gamo’s infinitude of shape, structure and fractal-like repetition (of vegetation, cats and fish) illustrate a kind of optical monotony and obsessive compulsion in her psyche. Keisuke Ishino’s manifold and cartoonish 3-D dolls made from simple printing paper and cellophane are fascinating and fun. There is even a video of the savant showing his prodigious ability to churn out several creations in a short period of time; he revels in his own repetition and seems to be blissfully unaware that his concoctions are breathtakingly beautiful.

The works on display at the Wellcome Collection are the subterranean and sublime expressions of intrepid individuals—true “outsider artists”—all of whom possess a complex state of emotions, internal logic and unique vision of the world. Their artwork lets you peer into a kind of psychological-social schema where abstract form and a lovely kind of consciousness intersect.

“Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan” is at the Wellcome Collection until 30 June 2013. Located at 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE, Tel: 44(0)20 7611 2222.

“If you ride like lightning, you’re gonna crash like thunder!” With density and intensity, Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines is a breakneck narrative of moral ambivalence, paternal sin, corruption, redemption and exhilarating unpredictability.

Derek Cianfrance’s brand new film, “The Place Beyond the Pines, is a jarring visual and emotional triptych complete with a cool indie vibe and a nifty thematic structure. In a protracted two and a half hours, it delineates the interdependencies of life and illustrates the bizarre and random nature of human affairs. With tense machismo, riveting irony and tons of psychic torque, it is an epic piece of cinematography.

Ryan Gosling plays Luke, a bleached-blonde, torso-tattooed Evel Knievel who sports a snazzy leather jacket (as in Drive) and sees the world in fairly benevolent terms until his inner demons are provoked. When he learns that his ex-flame, Romina (played by Eva Mendes), has secretly borne his son, he gives up his daredevil day job at a traveling carnival and takes an active interest in their lives, despite Romina’s romantic involvement with another guy (Mahershala Ali). Taking the moral high ground, Luke makes a personal pledge to mend a fractured past between he and his ex-girlfriend, especially for the sake of his infant son, Jason. “It’s wrong for a boy to grow up without a father,” he insists. “Look how I turned out.” “But how are you going to provide for him?” asks a cynical Romina. Luke’s ace motorcycle skills, it turns out, with the help of a savvy shop mechanic called Robin (played by Ben Mendelsohn) can be applied to absconding with stolen loot from banks. A lot of loot. His new vocation—bank robber/motor bandit extraordinaire—takes an interesting twist when he crosses paths with Avery (Bradley Cooper), a righteous rookie police officer who also has an infant son, and Deluca, a super creepy and depraved veteran cop (played by Ray Liotta). Their lives—and the lives of their sons—suddenly and crazily change forever.

“The Place Beyond the Pines” is a film with shifty chronology that viscerally segues from bank robber thriller to cosmic, interconnected drama. The director calls it “a Greek tragedy and classic tale of fatherly sins being foisted on sons.” Viewers have the rare pleasure of watching a truly suspenseful film with a complex, turbo-charged plot that makes for an awesome, mind-bending masterpiece. The unifying theme that ties everything together is human volition and moral decision-making—and the stark contingencies and consequences that will reverberate throughout all the lives involved.

“The Place Beyond the Pines” is in theaters now.

After an early epiphany that the best way to critique art is, in fact, to make it, Matt Jones, the all-American, hands-on conceptualist with infectious glee, has wittily synthesized multiple mediums with a smorgasboard of representational, figurative and contemporary offerings: abstract compositions, “energy paintings”, slick mosaics, life-size sculptures, pop portraiture, montages, collages, drawings and posters. An aesthetic magpie and cheeky commentator on Pop culture and the occult, Jones makes indisputably exuberant, euphoric and evocative art.  Works including “Parallel Universe” (2011) and his hyper-cool “Energy Paintings” (2013) flaunt a spectrum of washes and hues (deep purple, dirty turquoise, invincible blackness and intense mustard yellow) layered and splattered with rich acrylics and dramatic drips to form sublime infinities. He is a maestro of texture, optics and illusion. His gestures go from slight and sturdy to verve-y, visceral, and experimental in just a small space. Jones contemplates in paint on canvas; his viscosities morph from thin to thick, drippy to dappled resulting in vivid, hallucinogenic pictures that rupture and regress, then rupture again into vague voids and twilight zones.

Jones uses a wide range of materials in his huge paintings and crafty confections, which engenders a manic multiverse imbued with cosmological allusions, punk-rock heroes, freaky archetypes, personal friends and impish characters provoking rather ambivalent responses. He gives us a wide range of pop-iconography, Black Flag, String Theory, straight-edge, post-punk and neurotic characters in black balaclavas or images of himself sporting wrestling masks. A curiosity for the topography and nature of things, both the everyday and out-of-the-ordinary, motivates much of his fissuring creations. In all his mythic-psychic-scientific oeuvre, Jones agitates against the autonomy art itself, making us question how, as much as what, we are looking at.

CONTRA hopped the ‘L’ train to Metropolitan Ave. (deep in Brooklyn) to peep out Matt Jones fast at work in his studio/research lab.

Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Webster, New York (a suburb of Rochester).

Did studying art at Cooper Union help or harm you?

I don’t know that I would’ve made the commitment to the life I’ve chosen if I wasn’t immersed in art day and night for four straight years at Cooper. Cheap tuition, the East Village, brilliant mentors, genius classmates—it’s hard to think of my life now without those four years. No harm at all!

Empirical science and music are recurrent inspirations in your work. What are some specific sources or references?

Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem”, Star Trek, and Skyrim & Magic: The Gathering. Music-wise I’m into Dillenger Escape Plan, Phosphorescent, Slayer, William Tyler and David Bowie.

What career would you pursue if you weren’t an artist?

Once a high school test indicated that I should be a lawyer (but I don’t know if I’d be into that). I’d love to be an archeologist or anthropologist if I weren’t doing art but doubt I have the stamina for all that research and field work.

What other artists/creatives do you look up to?

Dead: Kippenberger, Polke, Goya, Manet, and Mucha. Living: Kadar Brock, Mark Gibson, Brian Dulaney, Wendy White, Albert Oehlen, Thomas Ruff, etc.

What are some of you favorite local galleries?

Off the top of my head I love The Hole, Greene Naftali, Canada, Petzel, and Eli Ping.

What’s your favorite TV program and movie?

X-Files and Twin Peaks are tied for the best TV show, in my view. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tree of Life, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Evil Dead, and Ghostbusters are tied for the best movie.

Who and what are currently on your radar?

I like Tatiana Berg a lot; Mike Mignola’s return to “Hellboy with Hellboy In Hell” is hands-down amazing. I’m obsessed with the “Walking
Dead” like everyone else; and lately I’ve been thinking about cosmic singularities, colliding galaxies and theoretical physics (which has my
mind in overdrive!).

Photography by Brittany Kubat

Exquisite extraterrestrial beauty Roza Abdurazakova (aka Roza A) has recently been creeping up the list of the fashion tribe’s yummiest models. Here she chats with CONTRA about growing up in Uzbekistan, life in NYC and what she thinks is sexy.

Roza A is the perfectly proportioned swimsuit diva garnering heaps of attention from New York all the way to Navoiy. With her big brown eyes and olive skin glow, she’s tipped for the top thanks to her upbeat attitude, posy pout, ease in front of the lens and beckoning bikini bod. She’s one of those gals with an air of fun and savvy about her and a face that can instantly make a baby smile (and a guy swoon!). Hailing from the model-teeming turf of Uzbekistan (part of the former USSR), Roza looks destined to follow in the stiletto steps of other superstar eastern and Eurasian vixens (think Petra Nemcova, Amra Cerkezovic or Natasha Alam). After being plucked up by Mc2 and looking like a bodacious Bond girl, she’s already halfway there. A favored show pony for brands Betsey Johnson, Ralph Lauren and Dsquared and with multiple mouthwatering editorial debuts for the likes of French Vogue and L’Officiel, Roza is the fiery Uzbek temptress making mad moves.

CONTRA got to hang out with the even-tempered, always sweet Tashkent girl to see what fuels her fires.

What sign are you?

Leo.

Where do you live?

I flit between NYC and Miami (but I usually stay in NYC). I have a cozy little loft in midtown.

How did you get discovered?

I was discovered back home in Uzbekistan by Mc2’s director, Jean Luc Brunel, who was on a trip to Tashkent in 2008 for fashion week. My sister and I both got scouted and soon thereafter I was walking for Dsquared, and moved to NYC in 2009.

What was your first shoot like when you got to NYC?

It was with Terry Richardson. A bit risqué but lots of fun!

Who is your best friend?

My sister, Nana, and my soul mate, Irina.

What’s ‘cool’ to you?

PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and my puppy, Lili!

What do you like to do on days off?

I like to curl up at home with a big bowl of ice cream and watch action and drama flicks. I also like to read about cosmology and lately I’m obsessed with reading anything by Richard Dawkins.

What was it like growing up in Tashkent?

Uzbekistan is quite a conservative place with a large Muslim population, traditional values and a legacy of socialism. It’s been going through a tricky transition since its independence in 1991 but it is a wonderful place with lovely, heartfelt people. Growing up in Tashkent (the capital) was a happy experience overall; I love my sister and parents very much and I had a wonderful upbringing there doing normal stuff with my friends and family.

How do you define sexy?

Sexy is an upbeat attitude, lots of confidence, passion about what and who you are and unflinching conviction. A ‘sexy person’ embodies those traits and that turns me on!

Are you in love?

(A big grin and a wink)

What do you think when you look in the mirror?

Hmmm, I just see an abstraction of my happy self—a kind of aura of a girl from a faraway place on a fascinating, sometimes crazy journey.

Who is your fashion or style icon?

I don’t have any particular icon but I do admire all the beautiful models out there and the talented artists and creatives. My personal style is constantly evolving—I’m actually very whimsical when it comes to fashion.

What song or album would be the soundtrack to your life?

There are too many! I loooooooove EMINEM! Basically all of his music represents the anthem to my life! I also love Lara Fabien, a few French oldies and lately I’ve been playing soundtracks by Uzbek pop rocker Shahzoda Rayhon.

Any personal inspirations or mentors?

My sis, my parents and Jean Luc Brunel!

What’s the best thing about being a model?

The best part of being a model is meeting such a diverse group of amazing people and being able to experience culture in a cosmopolitan way. I’m so grateful to be here in NYC and for all the opportunities that have come my way. It’s been an amazing learning experience and lots of fun. It’s totally bananas!

Katta rahmat! (Thank you very much!)

Roza Abdurazakova / MC2 Model Management

www.mc2mm.com

Photography: Roza’s portfolio at Mc2 / Terry Richardson / Cody Ross

It’s fairly easy to understand why South Africa’s edgy youth in the 1980′s gravitated to the punk scene. A vibrant, progressive generation, looking to subvert conservatism and apartheid, got galvanized by politics, youth culture and the anti-establishment themes and sounds of American and British punk bands, and were inspired to start their own categories of chaos, free expression and plangent polemics. A new and excellent documentary film, Punk in Africa, explores the origins of this multiracial, multilateral South African punk culture that exploded in cities like Cape Town, Durban, Jo’burg and Pretoria, and spread to neighboring Mozambique and Zimbabwe throughout the 1980′s.

Directed by two African-music aficionados—Keith Jones and Deon Maas, a South African filmmaker and music journalist respectively—the film chronicles what southern Africa’s cultural landscape looked like for thirty years under apartheid, and when starting a mixed race band in a society ruled by segregation and race-based degrees was a risky, adrenaline-addled gamble (musicians were under constant surveillance by the security services and music and media content was heavy-handedly censored). It also sheds light on South African music genres in the wake of those turbulent years: multiple waves of punk-inspired, anti-authority music in the 1990′s and 2000′s that continues today and that has taken on its own hybridized identity, with bands such as The Rudimentals, Hog Hoggidy Hog and Die Antwoord (our fav!) who mix punk with ska, reggae, rap and traditional African genres. “It’s an exploration and road map through South African punk,” says Jeffrey Brown, the film’s producer. “We wanted to show the cultural climate that gave rise to these novel movements through factious music.”

The film is a manic montage of show footage, DIY fliers and contemporaneous Q&A’s with artists and band members with names like National Wake, Screaming Foetus and Gay Marines, demonstrating that ‘Afro-punk’ was a reactionary reflex to two key currents in South African society: a black youth response to the 1976 Soweto Uprisings (a violent student protest against legislation making Afrikaans the official language) and a white youth rebellion against mandatory military service.

The filmmakers argue that the music movements that sprang up were not dissimilar to the politically-inspired punk scenes that emerged under communism in Europe or various military dictatorships in Latin America; they weren’t merely replicas of American and British punk but were indigenous responses to perceived repression, injustice and censorship. Most interestingly, the film shows how these artists, over time, began to fuse regional African rhythms into their conceptions of punk, creating a unique sound and awe-inspiring aesthetic that has been embraced by numerous youth cultures around the world.

Tilda Swinton is the alluringly complex, mysterious, androgynous, impish, sometimes somnolent starlet who likes to engage in long-endurance performance pieces. Last Friday at the MoMA she turned up to take a long nap in the museum’s spacious atrium. The artsy exhibition, titled “The Maybe”, will take place on a “sporadic, unannounced and random basis,” according to the handlers, and will last for an entire day when it happens. Visitors and voyeurs (including CONTRA) ogled over the British performer’s avant-garde spectacle, and widespread art-world rumors have abounded that the movie star will show up at other venues in the city and abroad to perform the same stunt. All day, people queued up to peer into her translucent case to watch her stretch and snooze and to take snaps of the actress wearing blue jeans and sporting her usual bleached blond bouffant. It was wacky, weird and a wee bit narcissistic, but a successful strategy on the part of MoMA to drive traffic and press. It wasn’t even that cool or sensationalist (we actually thought it was a bit tacky and drab). Anyway, it seems curators and creative directors have an imperative to merge the museum with the age of reality TV, where everyone’s ordinary life—even Tilda Swinton’s feigned semi-narcolepsy—is risqué, radical art. Whatevs.

NYC’s ‘Art Week 2013’ got underway last Wednesday, triggering the art tribe’s ritualistic week/weekend of showboating, schmoozing, champagne imbibing, impulse buying, sexual sublimating — an all-out whopper of a celebration. Always the unpredictable storm of money, marketability, ego, decadence, instant gratification and infinite inspiration, Contra Mag put on our galoshes and winter mitts and popped by the fairs and solo shows to check out what was poppin’ at New York’s art-world feeding frenzy. With way too much talent to report on here (there were over 500+ galleries and exhibitions), we were lost in a cosmic labyrinth and drenched in stimuli.

We peeped-out the big daddy of the week—the Armory Show—but also dropped by Scope, Fountain, Spring Break, Volta and a few galleries and guerilla shows, all of which contained a multitude of fully loaded, visionary and relentless artists. Here are six highlights:

Todd James (The Hole Gallery) “Figurative Painting Series” 2012.

Todd James (aka REAS) is the New York-based conceptualist, street artist and creator of the Beastie Boys’ Brooklyn Dust Elephant logo. His exuberantly colored, largely formatted paintings are wonderfully absurd and display a hefty dollop of frivolity and fun. James explores the psychological complexities and social archetypes of our age, exposing external appearances and their inner, often vulnerable conditions. His fervid imagination has produced an endless stream of heroes and anti-heroes, fun figuration and inventive, awe-inspiring color-ways. We’re basically bonkers for his work!

Kyotaro Hakamata (MA2 Gallery) “People in a Skit” 2012.

Hailing from Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, Kyotaro Hakamata creates installations and orphic ornaments depicting mass culture, sexuality, anxiety, gender boundaries and identity politics. His prismatic, surreal sculptures embody a compelling discourse between art, object and home décor and swell with corporeal and sensory notions.

Adrian Ghenie (Pace Gallery) “The Devil” 2010.

Berlin-based Adrian Ghenie is a contemporary master of the grotesque and tends to show the darker side of life in semi-Freudian style. His gripping compositions slip almost imperceptibly between paint and depicted form, figuration and pure abstraction. His stuff is hardcore, deep, menacing and magical, and we love his angsty, existential and often disturbing propositions.

Wang Gongxin (Tang Contemporary Art) “Until the End of the World” 2012.

Wang Gongxin is China’s premier digital doyen and Beijing’s most fascinating freak-star. He makes art depicting the beautiful and the ugly at once and creates associations that exude a visceral, scatological and magical fascination. “Until the End of the World” is a spellbinding source of visual grotesqueness (picture honey bees flying around a gilded skull and flies feeding off a jittery slab of decaying meat), and one of the juiciest video pieces we saw all week. We love!

Jesús Rafael Soto (Marlborough Gallery) “FL II” 1973.

Jesús Rafael Soto’s dizzying sculptures with mystic geometries, popping colors and trance-inducing techniques blew our brains out. His perfectly engineered materials and euphoric mediums hijack your cognition and make you have to look away to regain your sense of balance and train of thought. Deep, disorienting and ultra-cool.

Scott Ewalt (Participant Inc.) “Back in the Night” 2013.

NYC artist and nightlife freak Scott Ewalt engineers installations derived from the spirit of pop art, saccharine soft porn and alienated urban life. His newest installation—inspired by pre-gentrified Times Square—is filled with paintings, sculptures, found objects, etc. and is designed to take you back to the heart of gritty NYC before the Giuliani reforms. Think vice, ‘psychotronic culture’, Teaserama posters, hobo culture and NYC punk.

Famed for her abstract silhouettes, geometric wedges and unswerving commitment to quality, Julia Lundsten is one of the most inspirational footwear designers working in London today. Hailing from Finland, the avant-garde cobbler has quietly set about re-imagining shoe design through what she calls “innovative style and eco-friendly design.” In other words, unorthodox cuts, sustainable materials and experimental patterns merged with traditional methodologies to engineer a fissuring and fab range of kicks. These include the FINSK wooden wedge that has been hailed as a modern icon (and worn by Beyoncé and Lady Gaga), the street-wise ‘Wellies’ rubber boot that was born of a cool collab with heritage brand NOKIAN and a pulsating panoply of Scando-inspired shoes. By juxtaposing contrasting styles and synthesizing old with new, Lundsten has carved out an identifiable niche, selling her alchemical footwear around the globe in department stores and underground boutiques alike. “I’m inspired by architecture, interior design and high-quality heritage,” said the Finnish designer. “I love combining rigor with breathtaking romance and progressive design.” Julia Lundsten makes wedges for walking and shoes for living. We like!

For Fall ‘13, the sunglasses-sporting, ponytail-flaunting Karl Lagerfeld continued his drive to drench the world in all things Chanel. The presentation (shown in the Grand Palais, of course) was framed around a gargantuan globe rotating at a tranquil tempo and strategically marked with intertwined ‘C’s indicating the precise coordinates of Chanel locations around the world. With a well-established global footprint and a brand plan that involves colonizing emerging markets from Beijing to Baku, the Kaiser was alluding to Chanel’s expansion ambitions and implied there’s way more to come.

The rollicking range—shown to Daft Punk’s ‘Around The World’, how could it not be?—was an incontrovertible statement about the lux house’s hegemonic posturing. Robust, sophisticated and dripping with luxury, the aesthetic subsumed Karl’s usual sass and glam flourishes. There were must-have accessories (bags and chained-clutches) cut from soft leathery lambskins coupled with sparkling tweed and knit jackets; amazing embossed appliques and elaborate embroidery were worked into the fabrics with lean but mean silhouettes and playful ensembles (we’re going gaga for that monochrome floral thing Stef Van Der Laan wore!).

The outfits—emphasizing texture and tactile sensibilities—were certainly sexy in their contour-enhancing shapes, their moody, delicious colors expressed in stark black and white, electric pink, bangin’ blue and orange made for a feeling of whimsical and wayward fun. Kaiser Karl has always exalted womanliness and in this collection he infused dresses, blousons and outerwear with blooming red and white flowers that gave it a feminine yet powerful ornate sense.

Beneath all the dazzle and bling, the Kaiser gives us depth and, on a rare occasion, a dollop of humor. (Cheekily, he gave a courteous nod to Anna Wintour’s invincible bob—something virtually every press outlet has gushed about).

Anyway, we’re pretty impressed!

There is hardly a name so inextricably linked with the transition of streetwear into a highbrow fashion context than that of GROUND-ZERO. Designed and curated by Hong Kong’s hippest hustlers, Eri and Philip Chu, GROUND-ZERO is the brand that burns with transgressive yearning and avant-garde pizzazz. The brothers employ technical savvy and psycho-visual whiplash to make frivolous essentials and the most dashing street-inspired gear you’ve ever put your peepers on!

Fusing elements of high and low fashion with stark graphics, pulp fiction, Art Brut, ‘grunge-couture’ and techno themes, the brand has been getting some well-deserved praise lately. Nicola Formichetti, Lady Gaga’s
celebrated stylist, talked them up in a recent Dazed essay saying they are “at the forefront of Asia’s cool new creative wave.” Italian Vogue included them in their acclaimed “Rising Talents” series. And Asia’s cultural elite don their wears regularly on the red carpet and elsewhere. Perhaps the rise of the East has played no small part in their ascent: the Chu brothers are basically Hong Kong’s coolest creative duo, and mischievous motifs from Pop iconography such as fornicating Care Bears, Chinese calligraphy and sinister caricatures of Karl Lagerfeld repeatedly appear in their cooler-than-now designs.

For Fall ‘13, Eri and Philip said they’d been thinking about the fusion of man, machine and the wishy-washy notion of ‘existential paradox.’ The bros took themselves and the GROUND-ZERO brand on an angsty excursion, with a splendid, colorful collection inspired by sensational cyborgs, surreal cartoons and elegant activewear. The results involved amazing composition, craft and psychotropic zest. There were dresses adorned with patch-work
and prints of tessellating multi-hued dodecahedron, morphing ectoplasms and Transformer-like figures. Models wore eye-ornaments and visors from the future, silk robot-printed rompers, and baby-blue ruffled capes over
silk-blend dresses emblazoned with the words “Rise Up.” Deep blue-hued bodysuits and minimalist blazers with printed sleeves were the highlights, and the heels and wedges cut from flashy silver materials were upliftingly
decorative.

Mixing fashion, droll composition and bucket loads of wit, GROUND-ZERO’s visceral clothes are excursions into a Freudian funhouse.

We love!