“For this book, two photographers were commissioned by Rodarte. The designers provided Alec Soth with a map of California, marked with suggested routes and sites, as well as loose instructions for photographic content (Condors, forest fires, people sleeping, etc). Catherine Opie’s task was to photograph the clothing on models. One camera follows a roadmap, the other documents design. Informed by a cartographic impulse, or by the desire to link fashion design to the production of spaces and worlds, the book folds the trajectory and speed of a road trip into the static fashion image. The book, itself a kind of map or topological system, also splits the fashion image in two: landscape and portrait. […] And who are the models in Opie’s photographs? Some are friends, some are strangers, others were probably hired from an agency. In any case, this is not a typical casting: the Rodarte brand has been populated by models and non-models, insiders and outsiders, inviting a sort of social erosion or contamination between body types, age groups, gender orientations and life-forms. Step by step, shot by shot, the book disorients the fashion image and reactivates it as a map instead. In the book, fashion keeps getting away from itself, losing itself.” —John Kelsey
This coming up Wednesday, Kate and Laura Mulleavy (Rodarte) will be havng a discussion with Catherine Opie and Alec Soth about their book "Rodarte, Catherine Opie, Alec Soth". Event is free.
Wednesday Oct 19, 2011 7-9 pm
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024
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