21_21 DESIGN SIGHT is pleased to announce a new exhibition, Irving Penn and Issey Miyake: Visual Dialogue opening to the public on September 16, 2011. The exhibition will focus on the collaborative work of legendary photographer, Irving Penn and renowned designer, Issey Miyake. Issey Miyake’s first encounter with Irving Penn was in 1983. On assignment for American Vogue, Penn photographed Miyake’s clothing for an editorial feature. The perspective in these photographs startled Miyake as he suddenly saw his designs through a totally new set of eyes. As a direct result, Miyake asked Penn to photograph his designs.
Over the next 13 years, from 1987 through the Autumn/Winter Collection of 1999, Irving Penn photographed the ISSEY MIYAKE line’s biennial collections. Miyake never attended the photo sessions but instead chose to entrust the vision of his clothes entirely to Penn. The unusual decision to offer Penn complete freedom gave rise to an incredible “visual dialogue” between the two artists. The creative pulse of Penn and Miyake’s unique collaboration had a lasting effect on their artistic visions. In the end, Penn made over 250 photographs of Miyake’s designs, many of which appear in collection posters, were published in art books, or exhibited in museums and cultural institutions.
Under the direction of Midori Kitamura, Miyake's trusted colleague, and an installation design by architect Shigeru Ban, the exhibition features both the individual and collaborative work of Irving Penn and Issey Miyake. In addition to large scale projections of collection photographs by Penn, an animated film by Pascal Roulin with original drawings by Michael Crawford, and ISSEY MIYAKE collection posters exhibited collectively for the first time, original fine art prints made by Penn will also be on display as well as his preliminary drawings for photographing Miyake’s designs.
Irving Penn
“Issey Miyake makes body covering that need the wearer to bring his designs into full existence.
His inspirations draw from nature forms: shells, seaweed, stones.
His materials are natural and traditional: paper, silk, cotton, bamboo.
But occasionally he surprises with the use of plastic.
His roots go deep in his culture. There are overtones of warriors, mythology and folk mysteries.
His designs are not fashionable, but women of style are enriched by them and are made more beautiful by them.”
(From Issey Miyake: Photographs by Irving Penn, Little, Brown and Company, 1988)
Irving Penn (1917-2009) was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1934 he enrolled at The Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, where he studied design with Alexey Brodovitch. In 1943 Penn produced his first color photograph, a still life for the cover of Vogue magazine. In a career that spanned over sixty years, he created an extensive and influential body of work in portraiture, fashion and still life. Among Penn’s numerous books are Moments Preserved (1960), Worlds in a Small Room (1974), Flowers (1980), Passage (1991), Irving Penn Regards the Work of Issey Miyake (1999), Earthly Bodies (2002), A Notebook at Random (2004) and Small Trades (2009).
Penn’s photographs are found in the collections of major museums, including The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In 1995 Penn donated his paper and photographic archives to The Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited throughout the world during the last quarter century. In 2008 The Morgan Library & Museum in New York honored Penn with its first exhibition devoted to the work of a modern photographer.
Issey Miyake
“I was looking for the one person who could look at my clothing, hear my voice, and answer me back through his own creation. I searched long for such a person and found in Penn-san. […] Through his eyes Penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point — one that I may not have been aware of, but had been subconsciously trying to capture. Without Penn-san’s guidance, I probably could not have continued to find new themes with which to challenge myself, nor could I have arrived at new solutions.”
(From Irving Penn: A Career in Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1997)
Issey Miyake founded the MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO in 1970 and started to show at the collections in Paris in 1973. Miyake's exploration of the space created between the body and the cloth surrounding it has evolved, never deviating from his touchstone of clothing made from one piece of cloth. Miyake has constantly set his sights upon the future and the next stage of design, whether “product PLEATS” series (1989-), his functional and versatile “PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE” series (1993-) or the “A-POC” (A Piece of Cloth/ 1998-) series, that introduced a single process technology that created fabric, form, texture and completely finished items of clothing starting from a single piece of thread.Today, Miyake works with his Reality Lab to create clothing and products that address both aesthetics as well as the needs and concerns of the 21st Century; and launched “132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE” and “IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE” last year.
Exhibition Director's Message
Twice a year, after we had returned to Tokyo from the collections in Paris, Issey Miyake and I would select clothing for me to take to New York to be photographed by Mr. Penn. My trips to New York for Penn’s sittings were joyous occasions and spanned a decade, from 1987 to 1999.
Miyake followed a self-imposed rule to never be present at a photo sitting. He believed that by staying away, Mr. Penn would have a greater sense of freedom in his photographs. Likewise, Irving Penn never once attended an ISSEY MIYAKE show. Mr. Penn was always anxious to see the clothing I brought from Japan, and he listened to my descriptions intently. It was from these items that he made his selections and came up with poses, facial expressions, face, hair, and all of the other necessary elements to create a single continuous “story” line for each photo session. During those 13 years there were no changes in the core members of the staff: Tyen did the face, and the late John Sahag, the hair. Sadie Hall, a Vogue stalwart, would iron every piece of clothing to perfection.
For me, the photo sittings were always filled with surprises. I was the one who was supposed to be the most familiar with the clothes but during the course of the photo sessions, I watched them transform before Mr. Penn’s lens. It was an entirely new world for me.
Miyake would then inevitably be surprised and moved by the photos I brought back to him from New York, and the perspectives they mirrored would, in some way or another, provide inspiration for the subsequent collection. Miyake throws silent words to Mr. Penn and Mr. Penn embraces them. The two resonate in superb timing in what is to become communication. This miraculous collaboration will be introduced in the form of an exhibition and I hope that the splendor of this process and that of human creativity will provide inspiration among all those who visit.
Midori Kitamura (Exhibition Director)
Midori Kitamura, President of Miyake Design Studio
Born in Tokyo. Graduated from Ferris University. Since 1976, works under Issey Miyake on collections, exhibitions and publications as attaché de press of ISSEY MIYAKE INC.. Manages developments including creative direction of products such as perfumes and watches. Exhibition Director of Bulls Eye Special 2008 at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT together with Kazumi Oguro and Katsuhiko Hibino.! President of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT Inc. since 2009.
