How To Congratulate Someone On Becoming A Grandma

PEACOCKS & PINSTRIPES
8 Febbraio – 31 Maggio 2008
Fashion and Textile Museum
London

Al Fashion and Textile Museum si racconta la classe maschile nelle sue varie interpretazioni dagli anni Trenta fino ai giorni nostri, attraverso una serie di foto che immortalano icone dello stile di oggi e di ieri. Gli scatti esposti, che appartengono alla Getty Images Gallery , non vogliono provide a retrospective of male beauty decade by decade, but to provide an overview of the various expressions that word so multifaceted, style, takes through the goals of great photographers.

There is in fact the style of the great fashion of the fascinating portrait of Pierre Cardin in his studio, shortly after the inauguration in 1950, before his name was established in France and around the world. E 'represented the eccentric style embodied by Mickey Rourke, seated on a stool with leather pants and tennis shoes. You see a weird Malcolm McLaren in its expression, jacket and hat. Up to photo 1979, Naughty but nice , Keith Richards elegantly destroyed with a shoulder that rests against the wall, forgetting that the cigarette dangling from his fingers and his face hidden by a floppy hat.

The question around which the exposure is spread: "Do clothes make a man - or does the man make the clothes?" A bell'interrogativo. The classic men's suit jacket and trousers risked too often impersonal vanish in the currency of the businessman, in spite of every dress is different and specific measures are necessary to achieve (a curious photo pays tribute to the thoroughness of measurements for un panciotto). Ci sono alcuni uomini poi che sembrano nati con il completo. Come un gentlemen immortalato nel 2007 mentre cammina in Savile Row, nel centro di Londra, semplicemente elegante nel suo tuxedo con scarpa lucida –ma non patinata- cappello di paglia e bastone da passeggio alla mano, disinvolto e incurante degli incalzanti stereotipi del nuovo millennio.

La seconda parte della mostra propone invece esempi di eleganza contemporanea. Le foto in bianco e nero scompaiono improvvisamente per lasciare spazio ai lavori di fotografi d'avanguardia che ritraggono le future icone maschili. Il legame con il passato è tangibile in queste foto, ma diventa una citazione, un'influenza applied to the present, as strong as the other stimuli that continually renew.

The value of this exhibition is the choice that the curator has done in exposing photos of men before they became the characters, while their style was emerging. Furthermore, although the photos shown were taken by great photographers, with few exceptions, were not commissioned, they 'have never appeared on fashion magazines. This means that the men represented are transformed into icons of their time, however, without becoming a caricature. The masculine elegance, and fashion is the theme.

Not to miss: the epitome elegance. A wonderful Cary Grant, perhaps in a photo stolen by a fan, while absorbed leans against the column entrance of a hotel and aimed the tip of the umbrella up and, looking at the sky, wait for dipping.

Fashion and Textile Museum
83 Belmondsey Street
London
Tube: London Bridge (Guys Hospital exit)


Opening
Wednesday-Saturday from 11 to 17


Ticket
Adults £ 7 Concessions £ 4

Up to 12 years free admission

Do You Think Nami Is Hot In One Piece

JUAN MUNOZ - A RETROSPECTIVE
24 January to 27 April 2008
Tate Modern London

Seven years later, the Tate Modern tries again and a retrospective Madrid to the sculptor Juan Muñoz, who died suddenly in 2001, fate willing, even as his works were exhibited at the Tate.

Muñoz firmly believed that the sculpture is deriving a meaning from the interaction with the environment in which they both entered the relationship with the visitor. And 'in fact that it is assigned a new role, passive and active pop-up becomes part of the installation.

The complicity between spectator and work of art is created through atmospheres that leave ample space enigma, ambiguity, and the unsettling feeling that the left is perceived in some rooms. Such as Shadow and Mouth (1996) in which two figures stand out, one of which is sitting behind a desk, the other away and turn back, turn left on the wall, as if looking through that neighborhood support and shelter. The bond that unites the two parties is ambiguous, everything you can imagine clearly is the position of power which holds the figure behind the table and discomfort, insecurity, perhaps the fear that the other axle.

Even more disturbing is, in the same room, Staring at the Sea (1997-2000) in which two figures with their faces covered by a box with two small holes for the eyes, stretching on tiptoes to look the mirror, leaning one o'clock behind the other. Curiosity that moves them, the mirror that reflects their faces hidden, the form of cardboard leaving a sense of disturbance elusive.

A further step in reshaping the role of the viewer is made in Many Times (1999), an installation that fills a whole room of young men whose faces east in groups, talking as if they were friendly with each other, expressions smiling, arms outstretched in one of the many gestures of ordinary conversation. The good-natured faces, the tiny size of the characters should be reassuring to the visitor that can tower over them. But far from it. Although rationally does not seem there is nothing left, restlessness vibrates. E 'perception of diversity and isolation that takes a Westerner when she suddenly finds herself in conflict with the other, in this case the Orientals. Echoing the words of Munoz "The Spectator Becomes very much like the object to be Looked at, and Perhaps the viewer has Become the one who is on view" . The role reversal is complete: the visitor has become an observer from the observed object, is a sense of embarrassment but it does not rationally understand why.

A specific claim is therefore present in many works of Muñoz, such as the number of dancers, only vaguely human figures but no legs. Are supported from a rounded base that allows them to swing but, paradoxically, to dance and shake that Muñoz is a sharp scissors. Or like a wooden handrail, warm and smooth, but it conceals the blade of a knife. Or even more explicit, Wax Drum , 1988, a drum unusable, because covered with wax and a pair of scissors embedded in the skin taut.

The interaction between the statues, visitors and the environment, and lived space as a theater are other recurring motifs in the work of Munoz. The pavement with a geometric pattern in The Wasteland (1987) stands out as interlocutor for the viewer that, while it is moved towards the small bronze figure of seated with their legs dangling in front of the room, the other almost does not feel authorized to violate that space expanded by the effect of the optical geometry.


Not to miss: the appalling Hanging Figures of 1997, inspired by the painting by Degas Mlle La La at the Circus Fernando , which depicts the circus acrobats hung by their teeth. Muñoz's figures, however, almost completely lose the reference to the circus to become instead a more ambiguous meaning, and more than the circus ends to remind the press of bodies during a torture.

Tate Modern
Tube: Blackfriars Station, Mansion House

Opening
Sunday to Thursday from 10 to 18
Friday and Saturday from 10 to 22

Ticket
Adults £ 8 Concessions £ 6
, 7 pounds