Antonio Lopez: Drawings and Photographs
Fondazione Sozzani
Corso Como, 10, 20154 Milano MI, Italy
January 12 - April 13, 2020
The Fondazione Sozzani presents “Antonio Lopez, drawings and photographs”, curated by Anne Morin, director of diChroma Photography, Madrid, and in collaboration with The Estate and Archive of Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos, New York, the Anna Piaggi Cultural Association, and the Ottavio and Rosita Missoni Foundation.
This exhibition will bring together over two hundred original drawings, Kodak Instamatics, photographic grids, collages, diaries and films, that develop distinct thematic sections and document Antonio’s creative process, his visionary attitude, and the historical period in which he lived.
“Fashion served him as a pretext to express beauty, sensuality, sexuality, life and time. His own time.” writes Anne Morin. An unbelievable talent of the 70s and 80s, he was an extraordinary illustrator whose life revealed an irreverent world made of moments, people, clothes, music, art, kitsch and visual culture.
Lopez's work represented a cultural crossroads. At a nexus of high and low culture between New York, Milan and Paris, he created a deep aesthetic shift in the way the physical representation of the body was presented in the fashion world. With a complete ethnic and racial awareness, Lopez searched for a new beauty that was generous and full of energy.
Considered one of the 20th century's greatest fashion illustrators, the multifaceted talent of Antonio Lopez, along with creative collaborator Juan Ramos, contributed throughout the 80s to the Italian magazine Vanity (January 1982 - October 1989), directed by Anna Piaggi, Alberto Nodolini and Luca Stoppini. In Vanity the image of fashion entered unknown, new, and daring territories that were never seen before.
This, along with his watercolors for Missoni, drawings of male bodies created for Versace, powerful portraits of Grace Jones, Patti LaBelle, Pat Cleveland, Maria Callas, Josephine Baker, Carmen Miranda, photography and videos, each testify to an era of extraordinary creative fertility. Adored by stylists, models and photographers from all over the world, Antonio occupies a place of honor in the history of fashion illustration and left a vital mark in his thirty years career.
“I am interested in getting to know the figure better by taking it apart,” said Lopez, referring to his often-fragmented bodies. "The more I break it, the more I can examine it, the more I can understand what I have to do. For me it is a method. I don't know where it will bring me, but I'm curious and I want to go until the end.”
Lopez put glamor, creativity and fun at the center of everything. His days began late, and ended later, often listening to the best disco music of that time.
