As a gift for Leila Spilman's birthday, Torbjørn Rødland photographed her and her friends wearing clothing Spilman made under her own unestablished label LSCO. Also included are a Thom Browne jacket and Saint Laurent dress.
See our office exclusive story on Tokyo's full-female tying team, below...
Most of the people I know who are into the stuff would not openly admit it. They hide their ropes in bars or at a friend's place, have their faces covered or cut out in pictures. It's seen as shameful, perverted, misogynist and pornographic. It is exactly because of these reasons that I got into Kinbaku...
I got into Kinbaku because I come from a fashion background, and see kinbaku from an artistic perspective. When I tie I'm focused on the creative process, poses, colors, compositions, being able to convey the story and emotions in a picture. I often try to draw inspiration from fashion, film, humor and irony. I hope that people will be able to differentiate and understand the artistic side.
I do often try to desexualize the sexual subject of Kinbaku, make my pictures look innocent and romantic. I love being able to see girls be so vulnerable and so strong at the same time. I'm always trying to show that Kinbaku is more than a sexual kink.
For example the model reminiscing on a lost love, and intimate moments she had in that relationship. In those pictures audience can be seduced into conjuring up their personal sexual experiences...
My Kinbaku work and fashion design and editorial work really all feed into eachother. It keeps life interesting and spicy.
deliberation is the final installment in the performance series for Eye to eye: An Exhibition Benefiting Sanctuary for Families, offering a reflective finale for this month-long exhibition. Arsenal Contemporary NY is honored to have invited a group of 41 visual artists and 22 performing artists to empower survivors of gender violence through support of Sanctuary for Families.
"In presenting and linking artists with whom our relationships have been marked by generosity and exchange, our goal is to create a physical embodiment of our dedication to this cause. This remarkable gathering of artists inspire us through their creative output, their diverse relationships to making, history, and memory, and, ultimately, their fore-fronting of care."
-Arsenal Contemporary New York
Featuring: Caitlin Baucom, Kellian Delice, Kathleen Dycaico, Sarah Kinlaw, Aarron Ricks and Quenton Stuckey
Over time, there have been some naturalist cultural subgroups of people who have embraced body hair on all genders, most notably the hippie movement of the 1960s and 70s, in which hair of the head, body, and genitals was valued, seen as beautiful, and as a statement of counterculture and political revolution. However, overall in our culture, hair is to be shaved, trimmed, cut, styled, and removed.
There seems to be a new movement happening among some that’s pushing towards a new acceptance around body hair, which is coinciding with the current state of politics and fight towards gender, sexuality, and racial equality. Body hair, on all genders, can represent something personal, cultural, and revolutionary, and be beautiful as well. With this series, I hope to push the boundaries on what we consider attractive, worthy of viewing, and acceptable, and to attempt to breakdown the stigma one image at a time, hopefully giving people the freedom to choose what they want for their own bodies.
