Fit to Print

Comme des Garçons has always believed in printed matter. The experience of holding something in your hand, touching the paper, feeling the print quality, listening to the physicality of the whole thing, is far more powerful than experiencing the same creation digitally. Seventeen years ago, Rei Kawakubo had the idea to collaborate with artists to publish a brand-new annual series of communications posters. From Mondongo, an Argentinian art collective, in 2008 to Roman Signer in 2024, we have worked with a complex group of artists over the years, in a variety of ways, through this unique publication. Sometimes the back-and-forth was direct and in person. I visited the Quay Brothers (genius stop-motion animators) in their caravan in London. I found Ai Weiwei by a pond in Barcelona, and I cherished the dinners I shared with René Burri on the outskirts of Paris. But we’ve also worked by proxy with Raw Vision and the outsider artists associated with that great magazine; with the Rijksmuseum and its collection of 18th-century Dutch master portraits; with the creative director of Berghain nightclub in Berlin, who has worked for more than twenty years with underrepresented local artists; and with Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in New York, for an issue devoted to Paul Thek. From the beginning, the idea has been to ask artists to place implicit trust in Kawakubo, giving her access to their entire oeuvre, which she proceeds to contort and confound, creating something completely new. The hope is always that the artists, upon seeing the final result, have a feeling of seeing their work in an entirely new light.

—Adrian Joffe

Performance and Art

Nature, familiar scenery, primitive mechanics.

People, accidents, coincidences, failures, humor.

I don’t know how Roman Signer succeeded in putting all these elements together to make ART.

I challenged myself to see whether it would be possible to get to know these performance artworks through the flat printed page and if so, how.

—Rei Kawakubo

My works are like traps that I set for nature, so that she can intervene in the creative act as a partner, and perfect it. . . . The works come into being and pass away. And for me it is the in-between that matters, not only the result: not the aesthetic aspect but rather the process.

—Roman Signer

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Adrian Joffe was born in Johannesburg. After studying Japanese and Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he joined Comme des Garçons in 1987. He is presently the CEO of Comme des Garçons International and Dover Street Market International.

Rei Kawakubo was born Tokyo. She is the founder and creative director of Comme des Garçons, a company engaged the pursuit of the new. She studied fine arts and literature at Keio University in Tokyo before pursuing a career in design. In 1969, Kawakubo founded Comme des Garçons Co. Ltd. Its first collection was presented in Tokyo in 1973.

For the last fifty years, Swiss artist Roman Signer has been redefining sculpture by producing elementary actions and installations known as time sculptures. Signer has described nature as his studio. Through experiments with natural forces such as wind, fire, earth and water, everyday objects such as umbrellas, kayaks, boots, tables and bicycles are activated into poetic visual installations.

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Images: Courtesy Comme des Garçons. Additional credits: © 2024 The Estate of René Burri / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SAIF, Paris