NEW YORK, Nov 24, 2010/ — The ck Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein Jeans, and Calvin Klein Underwear stores today unveiled a unique collaborative installation with artist Anthony Goicolea as the focus of each of the brands’ annual holiday window displays.
Goicolea, a Cuban American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, is known for his complex, large-scale, realist self portraits, and his provocative work is recognized within the worlds of both art and fashion.
His latest work, commissioned by Calvin Klein, Inc. and entitled “Middle Night, a short film by Anthony Goicolea,” was inspired by traditional, early 19th century toys, snow globes, dioramas, shadow puppets, camera obscuras, kinetoscopes, and flip books, working with the basic principles of light, shadow, movement and optics.
“Middle Night” is a single channel video depicting Goicolea’s vision of white canvas tents in a snowy, wintertime scene, in which the action unfolds as the observing camera rotates in a 360 clockwise motion.
Inside the tents, there are shadowy, silhouetted figures shown dancing, singing, reading, hanging stockings, and having a dinner party. As the miniature landscape spins for the camera, the silhouetted scenarios change, as do the proportions of the characters involved, becoming miniaturized or exaggerated.
The camera is fixed, but each rotation of the snow-covered wooded scene spins slightly more quickly than the last. Just like with a flip-book or a penny arcade machine, the video positions the camera and viewer in a static position while the activity provides a short vignette for the audience.
The global window installation, which was overseen by Dale Rozmiarek, Senior Vice President, Creative Services, Calvin Klein, Inc., will remain on view through the holidays at freestanding ck Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein Jeans, and Calvin Klein Underwear stores worldwide, though only select stores will feature the video installation.
Goicolea’s video will also be viewable in its entirety at calvinklein.tv and at cku.com.
Goicolea made his debut in 1999 and holds an MFA in fine arts from Pratt Institute. He is represented by Postmasters Gallery in New York and Aurel Scheibler in Berlin, Germany.
In addition to photography, he has also been producing and exhibiting his drawings and has published three books entitled ‘Anthony Goicolea’, ‘Drawings’, and most recently ‘Fictions’. For more information, please visit anthonygoicolea.com.
Photos by Anthony Goicolea
