Cultured Magazine

154 culturedmag.com make artwork, and by us making these exhibitions and wanting these exhibitions a certain way, we find that we're engaging a new population that is interested in art. And we're having a dialogue with our own followings and the collectors of our own art, which I find super interesting. TM: We're really lucky that there are clients who are willing to buy these collaborative works. Both from the art world and the fashion world there are a lot of people enjoying the project and acquiring the works. That's the reason we can push this project forward. The shows in London and Paris were very successful. We're doing the next show in Los Angeles, where we can do a much larger-scale show. SR: Takashi has very maximalist aesthetic with bold colors and much more going on visually than the minimalist Bauhaus-inspired aesthetic Virgil usually works in. What is it like to work with somebody whose aesthetic approach is so different? VA: Visually, I work in a realm that's a lot about presence, the idea, the representation, the abstraction. So I wholeheartedly believe in Takashi's concept of the superflat. And his work articulates that in a visual form that I identify with. I can be quite maximalist as well, depending on the medium or the premise. What's been intriguing in the collaboration is how we're able to combine iconography and these symbols that are known as part of Off-White—be it the red tab or the yellow industrial strap or the cross logo—and draw a relationship to Takashi's iconography, signaling a marker of the two worlds coming together. TM: At first it looks as if Virgil's work is very minimalist, but I think that as he progresses he will continue—just as he is in fashion—eating and digesting all these different forms and directions in art and then creating something that reflects them. Virgil and I are similar in that when we move forward, we eat up the forms around us and digest them. Virgil's speed is so much faster, I'm hoping I can keep up and not get completely digested myself. SR: Takashi has employed a lot of satire in his practice, whereas Virgil talks about irony a lot, although the practices themselves are obviously ver y sincere. Satire and irony are impor tant tools for a critical approach to any sor t of creative output. I'm wondering if you can talk about what the use of satire and irony accomplishes and how it comes together in the work you do together? TM: When I'm watching YouTube and I see surfers riding enormous waves—maybe they are taken there by helicopter and build momentum using a Jet Ski and then they ride the huge wave—that's what the mood is like in this collaboration. Virgil is a surfer and everyone, including myself, is saying, "Really, can you ride such an enormous wave?" but we all go by helicopter to the wave and it works. Surfing is only possible because these huge waves are born because of how this earth is and because of how the universe is, and the weather conditions that create the huge wave. When I'm working with Virgil I feel like the important thing is to be on the same rhythm and taking the same step as the environment around us, so I haven't been thinking about irony. I'm just thinking: Can we ride this huge wave? And, oh yeah, we did. VA: Satire and irony are looming themes that are part of our now. I think they describe contemporary thought and the generation that exists now. Maybe that's what creates the wave Takashi is referencing. Our dialogue is not so much embedded in the art, it's embedded in the atmosphere that we're creating. SR: You've both approached your practices in specific relationship with the audience—with an intention to shift a perspective or to open up a perspective. How does this specific collaboration do that and go beyond just bringing people from the art world to the fashion world? What are the linguistic or institutional frameworks you are hoping to shift through this collaboration? TM: Because I am much older than Virgil, Virgil has commented on the work that I have already done, especially my collaboration with Louis Vuitton. The fact that he referenced it made me really happy because while the collaboration was noted in both the art industry and the fashion industry, it wasn't viewed as anything significant in either world. But I found that there was a recipient in the form of Virgil. He digested it and it became part of his own expression. Art is sort of a closed-off industry. Today with social media it looks like people are in dialogue and expressing together but it's still a solitary process, so to know that there was a recipient and for Virgil to actually explain to me what he received and how he expressed it was such a fresh feeling. I was moved by it. In terms of the new audience, Virgil has created a new window so it is a new experience for me, and that's why I can come up with new ideas as well. VA: I mimic what Takashi said. It's part of the motivation that there's a new audience. There's been a boundary between art and fashion that you couldn't cross. In my own work I'm interested in showing how those lines can be crossed and how new bridges can be built. The great thing

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