YSL/ Camilla Akrans

I found these photos by Camilla Akrans, it's a tribute to Yves Saint Laurent for Man About Town magazine.

Larry Sultan

When I did research on Stephen Shore I found out about Larry Sultan. He photographed his father and family over a ten year period spanning the 70s and 80s as part of an elaborate project that included his parents own photos, home movies and statements. This was the Reagan era which preached the values of family life, a version Sultan didn't recognize.

He said: “Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say, ‘Isn’t this a great family?’ So photography is instrumental in creating family not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology.”

His photos possess a certain quality of hard-edged California light, heightened color, and optical precision. His photos also contain some kind of domestic familiarity that influenced some recent films like A Serious Man, The Savages and Punch Drunk Love.

Sources:

-http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/larry-sultan-18189/profile.html

-http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-17/larry-sultans-california-dreams/

YSL

The last exhibition I went to while in Paris was a retrospective of Yes Saint Laurent at the Petit Palais. It's still going till the 29^th of August, if you have the opportunity to go you really should. The exhibition represent forty years of work through three hundred pieces chosen among five thousand. In the beginning of the expo are two rooms, the first one representing his real studio and the second one representing his inspiration and thought process. He is influenced by art, movies and the big modern figures.

He revolutionized the woman's wardrobe by borrowing the men's smoking and the tailored pants. That was his way of passing power attributes from a sex to the other. Inspired by the streets he created the Scandale collection in 1971, inspired by his dialogues with Art he made dresses resembling pieces from Mondrian, Picasso and Matisse, inspired by his imaginary travels he created costumes reflecting countries such as Russia, China, India, Spain, Japan and Marocco.

Here is a small video about the designer himself and the exhibition:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcmzbi_exposition-yves-saint-laurent-au-pe_creation

Sources:

-http://www.yslretrospective.com/

-http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcmzbi_exposition-yves-saint-laurent-au-pe_creation