Apart + Comme des Garcons
Hope that this is the right thread for this, if not feel free to remove it...
From fuk.co.uk:
London's 'Apart' art space is collaborating for a second season on a series of T-shirts for Comme des Garcon.
The project came about after Apart sent artworks to Louis Vuitton's private shopping club in Tokyo last year. Comme's Junya Wantanabe saw Conrad Leach's pop art portraits and on his next visit to London, popped into Apart to buy a painting (sensibly at London prices) which was then shipped to Japan for him. Once Junya and Apart's owner got talking, the designer expressed an interest in using some of the space's artists to create T-shirts. Spring/summer 06 saw the first series with designs from Sunil Pawar, Ben Cheshire, Sean Alexander and Ulla Puggard and for winter 07 there are two new arists involved - James Holdsworth, Gustavo Gagliardo and another Sean Alexander creation. Dover Street Market is set to stock the second series with each shirt priced approx £130 - delivery January 2007.
Apart has been serving up a fresh and varied range of art happenings and works at 138 Portobello Road (the point at which the posh meets prole) since April 1st 2000 supporting a slew of artists including Ric Blackshaw fom the Scrawl collective, Pakpoom Silaphan, Joseph Joy, Minx Design and Paul Savage. There's a lot that is special about Apart - it's no wonder the astute Mr Wantanabe has taken an interest in working with its artists. For one thing, it was created out of a blinding mass of rubble (the site used to be an antiques market) and turned into one of the best places to walk round and view art works in London by Adrian Palengat aka Big A. Adrian is one-time tree surgeon with a huge passion for maverick, unhinged and out-there art and ideas. Big A himself has inspired many of the artists who've taken part in exhibitions at Apart - as is evident from contributions to the book, Five Years Apart. And where else would you expect to see a for one-night-only exhibition featuring every page of an unpublished novel (by Ben Arogundades) stuck on every available surface, or a series of skateboards doctored, decorated and debauched by graf artists from all over London town (David Laub's Inspired exhibition).
Unfortunately, unless something miraculous happens soon (please God it does) Apart will close its doors and become a bakery/cafe operated by a corporate concern. Rent and rate rises in excess of 100% over the last year alone is forcing Adrian to take his crew of creatives and their artworks on the road. Apart will take part in flash-style art happenings in Europe and Japan - it could be a lot of fun and while Adrian is disappointed to be leaving he's upfront that
"with these price rises you just cannot make a profit. The corporates are moving into the Portobello and when corporates gatecrash the party, the cool people leave."