Mosaiko

Monsters in Fashion

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ATOPOS Contemporary Visual Culture (ATOPOS CVC) presents ARRRGH! Monsters in Fashion at the Benaki Museum, Athens - the fi rst exhibition about Character design in fashion, curated by Vassilis Zidianakis. The exhibition is participating in the Athens Festival 2011. Characters are abstract and reduced fi gures with a strong anthropomorphic appeal and bold graphical silhouette. Over the last decade, they have humorously sampled and remixed their way through visual codes and media, confronting the viewer head-on, regardless of cultural background. This aesthetic approach has a strong influence on contemporary fashion and costume design. International artists create playful dresses, avant-garde costumes and hairstyles, re-inventing the human body and sending their monstrous, enigmatic, radical and grotesque new Characters onto the catwalk and beyond. They redefine the relation between body and costume by mixing visual communication codes and questioning the established aesthetic norms.

The exhibition ARRRGH! Monsters in Fashion has been realised with the contribution of the following fashion designers and artists, Maison Martin Margiela, Walter Van Beirendonck, LucyandBart, Jean-Charles De Castelbajac, Mareunrol’s, Bas Kosters, Issey Miyake, Henrik Vibskov, Charlie Le Mindu, Boris Hoppek, Craig Green, Bernhard Willhelm, Marcus Tomlinson, Cassette Playa and Gary Card, Andrea Ayala Closa, George Tourlas, Piers Atkinson and Pyuupiru amongst others.

ATOPOS CVC is a non-profi t Cultural Organisation, founded in 2003 in Athens by Stamos Fafalios and Vassilis Zidianakis.

Its aim is to implement innovative projects of contemporary visual culture, with particular emphasis on the human figure and costume. It operates by researching projects of international interest, collaborating with designers and artists and realizing new ideas in the form of exhibitions, publications, performances and events.

ATOPOS CVC has participated in various exhibitions and projects such as Ptychoseis= Folds + Pleats. Drapery from Ancient Greek Dress to 21st Century Fashion, Benaki Museum, Athens, during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Bulls Eye SPECIAL 2008, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Tokyo and Atopic Bodies [THREE]: The Leiotrichous Tribe, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, in 2011. ATOPOS CVC became internationally acclaimed through the exhibition RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion which was fi rst presented at the Benaki Museum, Athens in 2007 and has since traveled to the

Μusee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxemburg, ModeMuseum, Antwerp and Museum Bellerive, Zurich. Since 2010, Barbican International Enterprises Ltd has undertaken the promotion and tour of the exhibition RRRIPP!!

The exhibition is supported the U.S. Embassy in Athens. For more information please visit: http:// www.atopos.gr