Lun*na Menoh: "A Ring Around The Collar" Fashion Show 2017 with Les Sewing Sisters, July 22, 2017

Lun*na Menoh: "A Ring Around The Collar Fashion Show 2017, with Les Sewing Sisters July 22, 2017

All photos by Steven Nilsson & Jennifer Cheung

Contact Information : (562) 999-2267
 arthappens@artexchangelb.org

ArtExchange - ArtX with the Long Beach Museum of Art
presents:

Lun*na Menoh “ A Ring  Around The Collar: fashion show 2017”

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lun*na Menoh “A Ring Around The Collar: fashion show 2017,”
with Les Sewing Sisters
Date: Saturday, July 22, 2017
Time: 8:00 P.M.
FREE EVENT

ArtExchange - ArtX with Long Beach Museum of Art presents “Lun*na Menoh, A Ring Around The Collar Fashion Show 2017.”

Taking place at ArtExchange Gallery, 356 East 3rd Street, Long Beach, CA, 90802 and featuring art performance/ music band Les Sewing Sisters.

Unlike a commercial fashion show, Lun*na Menoh ’s fashion show is more of a “de-fashion show.”  There are Runway models changing outfits one after another but Menoh’s clothing, although wearable, is more conceptual in theme and practice. For this event/performance,  Menoh’s theme of the fashion show is “ A Ring Around The Collar”  which is also the title of the exhibition of her artwork that is taking place at ArtExchange/ArtX.   Menoh worked on "A Ring Around The Collar" art/clothing project for 18 years, and this is her first fashion show in Long Beach.  The majority of the wearable clothing is made by dirty stained white collars or the image of the dirty collar.

In addition, Les Sewing Sisters will perform their music before the fashion show.


Les Sewing Sisters are Lun*na Menoh’s music project with Saori Mitome, which uses the sewing machine as a music instrument.  All music heard by Les Sewing Sisters are original sounds that come from the sewing machine and then altered through electronics, which in turn changes noise into music.  Les Sewing Sisters is a mixture of spoken word, singing, jazz-influenced pop, with a side of hip-hop, yet danceable experimental noise music. All the lyrics are about dressmaking, sewing, fashion, and clothing.

Also a short video for the program:

"A Ring Around The Collar" 7 min video

Directed by Jeff Mizushima

A video directed by Jeff Mizushima on the history of Lun*na Menoh's collecting and using men's dirty white collars for her artwork.  Ten years of the artwork and fashion shows that Lun*na directed and made with respect to her art. 

 "Lun*na Menoh has brilliantly narrowed the catwalk between art and haut couture, fashioning work that adorn bodies with thrilling ingenuity and restyles our mind.”
- Ralph Rugoff: Director of the Hayward Gallery, London

July 22, 2014

July 22, 2014

I couldn’t sleep last night so I just got dressed and went to my diner on Greenwich Avenue, to have a cup of herbal tea. In case, I can go back to sleep later.  I was worried by yesterday’s meeting I had with Doctor Menninger, my psychiatrist for the past three years.  I suffer from depression that just doesn’t stop.  In the middle of the night, while I’m in bed, I often started crying for no reason, at least in my mind I can’t find the source of this misery.  He has given me a prescription and I have been taking it on a strict basis, but still, I can’t remove the darkness that seems to be tattooed on my brain.  Being a rather vain man, people, especially girls, have commented that I have developed bags under my eyes, which are a pretty new visual for me.  The utensils at this diner are very shiny, and I can see my reflection on the back of the spoon, and the first thing I notice are the bags.   My face is very pale, and the darkness under my eyes disturbs me.  Doctor Menninger, thinks I should think of other things besides yours truly.

The situation is I only know myself, and I don’t know that much about anything else. When I feel anything, emotionally speaking, it is always a bad feeling.  If I had one philosopher or writer that I followed, it’s Amy Vanderbilt.  Her “Complete Book of Etiquette” is as close to the Bible for me as possible.  In the book, I found this quote that rings true to me: “Good manners have much to do with the emotions.  To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.” That and “do not speak of repulsive matters at the table” pretty much rules my thoughts on how one should interact with the world today.   The problem with me is how far can I go with my emotions in a public space?  My awkwardness just gets in the way, when I wish to express myself in a certain fashion, and usually I have to re-think how I should say or convey my feelings, so it won’t disturb or put people off.

When I want to communicate, that is the time or moment when I fail to do so.  Which of course, triggers off my anxiety which leads to the crippling depression.   The Vanderbilt book is an excellent guide for me to follow and also I can obtain information in the book in bite-size portions. Nonetheless, sometimes reading is very difficult, and I tend to read words off a computer or page, and I tend to wander into some abstract zone, where I find myself trapped with (again) the anxiety that seems to rule my conscience.   Going to the cinema helps me in that I don’t have to think, it is just sitting there in front of a large screen and focusing on the images, and if I want, I can hear and digest the words coming from the actor’s words. “Taxi Driver” is a film that I have seen at least 25 times.  I of course have the DVD, but when it originally came out in 1976, I would sit in a theater and watch that film over and over again.  The first viewing I wasn’t practically paying any attention to it, the images off the screen were just background noise, so I can sit in the darkness and think or let my mind wander.   Over time, and repeated screenings I started to pick up the anxiety of the main character, and that, oddly enough, helped me through the day.

The only other film besides “Taxi Driver” that had a huge effect on me was the “The Invisible Man” starring Claude Rains, directed by James Whale, and even the great Preston Struges had a hand in writing the script.  I think what appealed to me was Rains’ interpretation of the invisible man and how one can be there, but not there.  In other words, I often felt invisible to my peers, or in a crowd, and it’s moments like these, where I realize it doesn’t matter if I’m here or not.    I often wonder if I should just enter the world, and totally subject myself to a cause or even a position in life, but the truth in the manner, is that I wouldn’t be in it for the purpose of that cause, but more to fill myself with a duty to prove that I’m alive and somehow I can make a difference out there.  Then again, perhaps it is appropriate enough that I sit here and look at my reflection off the back of a spoon.