The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions

OUT OF THE ORDINARY

NAOMI FILMER REACHES NEW DIMENSIONS IGNORING SPACES



Naomi Filmer continues to reach new dimensions, breaking all the rules of what is considered contemporary jewellery design, the category from which she originates. Her latests works see her experimenting once again with unexpected mediums,and dimensions relating to the body. Oversize sculptural pieces in bronze with leather finishes, with smaller pieces in resin. This surprising yet extraordinary change of scale and depth in Filmers work confirms once again the geniality of her talent to manipulate almost any material, highlighting it's likeness and flexibiility to that of the human body, with delicate nurturing ,hence giving it life.

The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions 19 September 2009 - 10 January 2010

This autumn five top international designers will be presenting exclusive work in The Art of Fashion. With this exhibition Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen explores the boundaries of fashion. Fashion shows and advertising campaigns have had their day. Designers use installations, performances and sculptural designs and enter the area of fine art. In Rotterdam the sparks that fly at the interface between fashion and art will be revealed spectacularly.

At the heart of the exhibition are exclusive new works by five top international designers. The H+F Fashion on the
Edge Foundation invited Viktor&Rolf, Naomi Filmer, Hussein Chalayan, Anna-Nicole Ziesche and Walter Van Beirendonck to make brand new pieces for this exhibition. The designers abandon the principle of a wearable collection and seek out the boundaries of fashion. The works will be unveiled at the opening of the exhibition on 19 September 2009.
Aroma Viktor & Rolf are masters in conjuring up complex, imaginary worlds. In their project Alternative No. 1 they subject the codes of worlds like these to close scrutiny. The perfume that they create is built up from unexpected elements. The fairy tale in which we are all too pleased to be a part is disturbed by an aroma, a bottle and a campaign that summon up more nasty experiences. Sarcophagus Walter Van Beirendonck also creates an ingenious fantasy world, inspired by comic strips and graphic motifs. He presents a six metre high temple for his own wooden sarcophagus as it will be found three hundred years after his death. He uses this to consider rituals and the meaning of life. Ignored spaces Jewellery designer Naomi Filmer is interested in ignored spaces and wonders how the body relates to its environment. For the Breathing Volumes project she investigates the space under the chin. The result is not jewellery but a sculpture that enters into a direct relationship with the observer.
In Filmer's practice she is both hands-on and hands-off: sketching and casting metal, and also working like a producer by collaborating closely with sound designers, glassblowers and cameramen.

'The work I make focuses on ordinary parts of the body that we never really celebrate, but actually there is nothing ordinary about them at all, they are unique to every individual. By isolating them, and making a spectacle out of them, they are made extraordinary. I am interested in recognisable sounds like breathing - there is nothing more familiar than the sound of your own breath. If you capture those sounds, amplify and repeat them, they become unfamiliar.'