The futuristic, sci-fi like scenarios created by the artist Mariko Mori in her photographs and video installations often include Mori herself, dressed in outlandish costume, and are intriguing and imaginative works which combine elements of Japanese popular culture, such as Japanimation, as well as fashion, cyberspace, and video art. Mori, who studied fashion in Tokyo and art in London and New York, has become one of the freshest young artists working in the '90s, and this book, which is the first on her work, comprehensively catalogs her upcoming exhibitions. Recent video work by Mori has included such works as Nirvana (shown at the '97 Venice Biennale), in which the artist depicts herself making symbolic Buddhist hand-gestures as she floats above the Dead Sea. Still another piece is a video in which Mori, in futuristic space wear, rolls a crystal ball through an airport to the haunting melodies of a Japanese song. These works involve a surrealistic interplay of imagery which suggests something akin to the art of Yayoi Kusama, the costs of funk icon George Clinton, science fiction, and the film works of Matthew Barney.

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This volume is an unprecedented history of Louis Vuitton’s women’s bags, the most coveted line of accessories in women’s fashion. At the heart of Louis Vuitton are its City Bags, a range of women’s bags that dates back to the turn of the twentieth century. Featuring the trademark monograms of the house, the City Bag story began with the Steamer, a resort bag designed in 1901 to be packed inside a much larger steamer trunk. These bags have in a hundred years formally diversified into a dizzying array of handbags for every conceivable function demanded by the modern woman. Profoundly influential, City Bags are now known to millions by their descriptive names (Keepall, Bucket, Papillon, Alma, Locket, Noe, Speedy) and are still evolving into more fantastical forms. Lavishly illustrated with new and archival photography, historical graphics, landmark editorials, and ad campaigns, the volume traces the history of these specific bag families, and examines the earliest specimens and today’s most sought-after collectibles, including Vuitton’s collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince, Yayoi Kusama, and Rei Kawakubo and one-off projects by Zaha Hadid, Shigeru Ban, Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, Andrée Putman, and of course, Marc Jacobs. Louis Vuitton: City Bags is an ambitious volume on the creation and cultivation of a cultural phenomenon.