Celebrity Life

There’s no doubt Alex Lam inherited his musical talent from his parents, his father being Cantopop legend George Lam Chi-Cheung, and his mother, Sally Yeh. Still, the singer-songwriter and actor hasn’t let privilege get to his head — he’s not afraid to explore other paths, from a stint in Los Angeles to discover yoga and becoming a yoga teacher, to dipping his toes in fashion.

Lam met Hiro Yoshikawa, founder and designer of Washi Jeans, a Japanese denim brand, a couple years back and was intrigued by the designer’s backstory. Now based in Hong Kong, Yoshikawa is the 18^th generation of a revered sake maker in Okayama, Japan, and the first to leave the family business to pursue his own passion in denim-making. By chance, Yoshikawa had found an old document that charted out his family’s history, written on washi paper. Inspired by this, he developed and patented the Washi No. 6 paper yarn, which he utilizes in his first solo collection launching this month.

Lam, who has always had an eye for detail, quickly became an ambassador and muse for Yoshikawa, and took it upon himself to bring the recognition Yoshikawa deserves by helping him stage his upcoming solo debut.

We sit down with Alex Lam and Hiro Yoshikawa at Washi Jean's studio to talk about style and the upcoming debut of Yoshikawa's solo collection Life on Earth.

Can you describe your style? What are your wardrobe essentials?

AL: My style has always been inspired by musicians. I grew up watching some of my favourite bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and today, I'm inspired by singers like Drake. For me, my summer essentials include a sleeveless vest, a good multi-functional blazer and a pair of high-quality designer jeans.

Have you always been passionate about fashion and did you want to work in fashion?

AL: I have always cared about how I look and my outfits since I was a kid. I remember there was one time when the collar of my t-shirt wasn't right and I wouldn’t wear it out until my parents fixed it for me. Having friends who are in the fashion industry allows me to execute and experiment my ideas during workshops, like the ‘marshmallow’ colourway of the t-shirt I’m wearing right now. 

How did the both of you meet?

AL: I met Hiro-san thought some of our mutual friends.

HY: have been making jeans for other brands for the past 30 years and it has always been my dream to have my own denim brand. I have always hung out with people from the fashion industry, and meeting Alex from the music and acting world has made my life more fun and exciting.

Can you tell us a bit about your project with Hiro-san?

AL: I was hanging out with a group of producers and we often talk about fashion shows, designer brands’ videos, installation art and music. Once we found out Hiro-san wanted to launch his own denim brand this year, we decided to catch this opportunity and put our ideas together. We are organising a VIP launch event with a fashion show on June 11, 2021.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome with this project?

AL: I think the rules of the game changed after Covid started last year. We looked at online fashion shows last year, without the tradition styles, and we knew our team needed to do it in a cleverer way. The restriction for event gathering is 30 persons at the moment, so we were not able to invite too many friends and make the event as big as before. Plus the campaign and fashion show video shoot all in one day, that’s the biggest challenge in this project.

HY:  We have been staying in our studio almost every day is the past few months, meeting different parties like our PR team, models, videographers and producers.

What else are you up to this year that you can share with us?

AL: I have released a new song and I just finished a music video for another song. I have also been working on my YouTube channel and created a few series, but it’s been slightly slowed down because I was focusing in this project.

Has the pandemic affected the way you work or changed your priorities?

AL: Before Covid, I was busy working with clients, who often prepared everything. With changes and restrictions during this period, I am able to organise and create more content by myself.

What are you currently inspired by?

AL: There are many indie musicians and young kids out there who are doing their music in their unique styles. I admire them a lot as they can release songs as long as they think it sounds good. I used think good music requires the best studio and recording equipment, but turned out a lot of indie musicians are producing high quality songs just by working at home.

You have a YouTube channel, you're into fashion, music as well as classic cars. How did you get into each of those passions and how do you balance it all?

AL: Project by project. I’m now focusing more on quantity over quality and I'll keep learning from the progress and mistakes.

Do you have a motto you live by?

Stay healthy. As I was a yoga teacher, I still practice yoga for two to three hours each day. It’s a good way to reflect on myself and find peace.

The post A Guided Tour to Homes of Four Great Artists appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

When the reform-minded government of Gough Whitlam came to power in Australia in 1972 after 23 years of conservative rule, it embarked on an agenda of polices that ranged from the high-minded ­­– recognising the People’s Republic of China, returning indigenous lands, abolishing the death penalty and axing university fees ­– to more prosaic but urgent matters like connecting the sprawling outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne to a modern sewerage system. Cultural investment was also given prominence, with Queen Elizabeth opening Sydney’s iconic Opera House in October 1973 following two decades of construction – a rancorous project that saw Danish architect Jørn Utzen head home to Denmark, never to return, while cost overruns hit tens of millions of dollars. That fateful year also saw the start of the Gulf State oil embargo and the mid-70s recession. So when it emerged that the also new National Gallery of Australia in Canberra had paid AU$1.3m (HK$6.5m) for a painting by an American artist, Jackson Pollock’s 1952 work Blue Poles, which looked someone had laid the canvas on the floor and poured, dribbled and flecked house paint all over it, the public and popular media reacted as if they’d just learned that someone had strangled the Queen’s corgies. (After forking out for Blue Poles, the NGA acquired another work, Woman V, by the Dutch-born US painter Willem de Kooning, for a more modest US$650,000. Both painters were colleagues from the so-called New York School of Abstract Expressionism that formed after the second world war).
Fast forward to the present, where times, and attitudes, have of course changed. In a short video at the NGA’s website, Christine Dixon, senior curator of international painting and sculpture, describes why the painting today is the gallery’s most popular exhibit, starting with its sheer size: “People forget that when they see reproductions of works of art, everything looks flat. But when you come to this beautiful work, you’ll see that it’s nearly two metres high and more than five metres long.”

[caption id="attachment_206825" align="alignnone" width="1762"] Blue Poles Jackson Pollock[/caption]

And, yes, Pollock did paint on the floor – his paintings were just too damn big to lean on the wall ­­– where he “used any implement he liked to pour and dribble and fling paint to the canvas”. And yet, Dixon adds, “he could draw so subtly with such intricate ideas about the lattice work and three dimensionality of the painting. The more closely you look at the work, the more deep it becomes. If you move away it becomes a surface again.”
And therein lies one of the most intriguing features of Blue Poles (and Pollock’s other works from that period): that, according to some mathematicians, the painting is composed almost entirely ­of fractals, something Pollock was probably not even vaguely aware of. Fractals are patterns formed by congregations of exactly, or very similar, patterns. For example, imagine an equilateral triangle that itself is comprised of four smaller triangles with exactly the same pattern. Or take the original one and stack three more the same size to get a new triangle that is four times that size. Fractal patterns are ubiquitous in nature in shapes as diverse as snowflakes or biological structures ­­­– indeed they are the patterns of life. Look closely at a snail shell or the veining of leaves. They are also found in art, especially in East Asian imagery of water and clouds: think Hokusai’s famous woodblock print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and notice how the shapes of the giant waves and the breaking foam at their tops are fractals of each other.

Meanwhile, it’s been nearly five decades since the NGA paid what was then a world record for a work by an American painter. Was it taken for a ride, or did they get a bargain? In September 2016, the Australian Financial Review reported that the painting had an insurance valuation of about US$350 million (HK$2.71 billion), some 300 times the 1973 price tag ­– a frenzy of fractals at a fraction of the price.

The post Arty Facts: Seeing Red Over Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

From Pablo Picasso to Andy Warhol, the MoMA is loaning 200 key artworks by iconic artists to the Louis Vuitton Foundation, where they will be showcased in France for the first time.

The post Exhibitions in Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton presents “Being Modern: MoMA in Paris” appeared first on LUXUO.

With the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opening doors once again on May 14, the Yerba Buena district is set to become a cultural and artistic powerhouse.

The post Things to Do Near and at SFMOMA appeared first on LUXUO.

Aiming to become one of the largest spaces for art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art gets Snohetta to help revamp

The post San Francisco MOMA Gets Ambitious Facelift appeared first on LUXUO.

Some of the world's most expensive and rarely seen modern art, including works by Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko, went on display in Iran.

The post Art Unusual: Warhol, Pollock in Tehran showing appeared first on LUXUO.