Image courtesy of MoMu Gallery

MoMu Gallery. Traditions & Dreams. Kimono from the Kubota Collection

1937. Itchiku Kubota, a young Japanese artist sees a fragment of a 16th-century kimono executed in the so-called Tsujigahana style in the Tokyo National museum. The elaborate amalgam of textile techniques, including painting, drawing, embroidery and dyeing used to create stunning 16th-century kimonos of unsurpassed design, has at that time been a lost art in Japan for several centuries. Kubota starts to slowly unravel the secrets of Tsujigahana and to introduce them in contemporary kimono. He is the first to introduce the concept of creating large landscapes spread over many adjacent kimonos. Each can be seen as a separate garment or they can be viewed as a long series.

Image courtesy of MoMu Gallery

This national dress of Japan, deceptively simple, consisting of rectangular shapes sewn together can be everyday costume, fashion statement, ritual garment and work of art displayed on a kimono stand in a house. Akiko Fukai, Curator Emeritus at The Kyoto Costume Institute, underlines the difference between Japanese and Western fashions: while Western cuts tend to follow and emphasize the body’s curves and lines, traditional Japanese clothing, such as the kimono, shift the focus from the waist to the shoulders, and leave more space (‘ma’ in Japanese) between body and garment.

Image courtesy of MoMu Gallery

The exhibition in the gallery of MoMu will shows six kimono’s of his unfinished Symphony of Light series and two kimono’s from the Mount Fuji series, which will all be the on view for the very first time in Belgium. Conceived when the artist was in his seventies, Symphony of Light was only partly done when Kubota died. The kimonos are a powerful statement of concepts developed and refined over many years. Like all the great textiles of the world they suck the viewer from a powerful image into the intricacies of tiny embroidered, painted and tie-dyed elements breathing life into the varied textures of the woven silk cloth.
This exhibition is organized on the occasion of the festivities of 150 years diplomatic relations between Belgium and Japan and with the support of Port of Antwerp.

Fashion Museum Province of Antwerp
MoMu, Belgium

Until June 19, 2016

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