[Title] search for scenery
[Artist] Izumi Kon
[Date] October 31 – December 17, 2002
Following the Christmas display, Izumi Kon presents the second act of her window display for the New Year. In Japan, the color of the New Year is pure white. Thus, the window presents an elegant scene in a single shade of white.
Because the window display extends from the end of the year until the beginning of the New Year, the artist shows awareness of Hermès’ 2003 theme, “The Mediterranean.” Kon designed a cave form taking inspiration from the following image: “There are many caves in the Mediterranean.” Indeed, you can find in the Mediterranean islands an infinite number of caves that resemble limestone caves.
On a thin panel hanging in the form of a cave, Kon drew baby’s breath spirea in the image of the coming spring, and a long, chain-shaped necklace, a new product of the season. One can see her technique of drawing only a limited part of the art object with an exquisite sense of “ma” (space). Also notable is the delicate distance between the art objects and products in the installation. It is perhaps because these techniques emit a fragrance of Japan that the work naturally feels familiar to us.
The prêt-a-porter on display consists of soirée wear from both the men’s and ladies’ collections. In the front left, the vivid impression of the colour orange is emphasizes by revealing the soles of men’s shoes.
Like the first act, this window is structured around the coexistence of the artist’s drawing of products and actual products themselves, which seem to jump out from the drawing. Kon’s work, which is drawn by “hand,” exquisitely echoes the products, which are created by the “hands” of Hermès’ craftsmen. It is through this juxtaposition that the work expresses Hermès’ theme.
We can feel the coming of the New Year in the unfolding of the scene, which seem transparent, yet emitting warm, gentle light.
Izumi Kon
Born in Tokyo in 1977. Finding objects that make her “want to draw” from various sources such as magazines, Kon uses acrylic paint to draw on box-shape panels covered in cotton cloth. She establishes her own unique style in employing minuteness and the decorativeness of lamé upon a “Japanese” pictorial structure.