Grau: Luc, you usually use very subdued colours. You, Yohji-san, have mentioned many occasions that black, as a result of it’s understated, is usually the best assertion.
Yamamoto: Once I began serving to my mom make garments, we had so many purchasers who requested her to make issues from vogue magazines—all these pages have been lined with colourful floral prints. I might have a look at the photographs and on the buyer. I assumed, It might be unimaginable to make this clothes for that particular person. I started to hate colours and prints. I began to all the time put on a black T-shirt in order to not disturb folks’s eyes, and I nonetheless do now. That is the second when my work in so-called vogue began. At the moment, black was not a modern colour in any respect. It was worn at funerals.
“I began to all the time put on a black T-shirt in order to not disturb folks’s eyes, and I nonetheless do now. That is the second when my work in so-called vogue began.” —Yohji Yamamoto
Grau: However have a look at your Spring/Summer season 2026 assortment. You additionally love colour.
Yamamoto: Not likely. I solely love Japanese crimson. Japanese girls used to put on kimonos, and the ultimate piece was crimson. Possibly I can bravely say that probably the most interesting colours are black and crimson.
Tuymans: I began sporting black once I was 16, I feel. Coloration for me isn’t easy. It’s about tonality, temperature. Flat colour is like sculpture—there should be layers. Now I work in a way more colourful method, nevertheless it took me years to get the correct distinction. I used to be all the time afraid to overdo it. Solely a few years in the past did I lastly dare to play extra with contrasts. Most likely as a result of I’m a bit older now.
Grau: Luc has thought so much about what he needed to debate with you, Yohji-san, and has all these concepts. Luc, I might love so that you can say what you’ve been fascinated about in relation to Yohji-san.
Tuymans: Probably the most fascinating factor in Mr. Yamamoto’s work is the element and the disregard of element—a posh state of affairs which is, on the one hand, very Japanese, and then again, by no means.
Grau: Very Flemish, too.
Tuymans: Sure, it’s very near the place we really meet.
Grau: Do you agree with that, Yohji-san?
Yamamoto: I’m sorry to say, it’s solely a way to make folks really feel much less bored.
Tuymans: That’s an excellent reply. I’m additionally fascinated by the deconstruction of the garments, which was new once you did it. I’ve all the time had an important respect for designers. Once I first noticed a vogue present, I used to be like, What! All this work for half an hour? My work is motionless; it needs to be nonetheless, contemplated. Your work strikes round in society.
Grau: You’re each passionate people who smoke. Luc, you needed to give up, however can’t. You, Yohji-san, have by no means tried.
Yamamoto: I by no means considered it.
Grau: What do you are feeling once you smoke?
Yamamoto: I began smoking cigarettes once I was 16 years outdated. I by no means, ever considered stopping. I can die anytime. If I have been to consider making my life longer, I might give up cigarettes. However I’ve by no means considered that. Tomorrow, I can go up there or down there. However I’ll by no means cease.
Tuymans: It’s a manner of transporting your self someplace else. Despite the fact that I attempted to do away with it, it retains coming again as a result of it’s embedded within the work course of. The dopamine slows me down, and offers me time to assume.
Grau: My final query to each of you, Yohji-san and Luc, is: What can artwork do?
Yamamoto: Fairly often, artwork could make folks really feel braver or really feel improbable, however typically artwork could make folks really feel down, unhappy. It has this double energy.
Tuymans: Artwork could make folks rethink, and perhaps ultimately assume. It’s, in a really bizarre manner, a distorted type of hope. And it’s a necessity in life.
You should purchase a replica of the Artists on Artists situation, that includes this dialog and plenty of extra, here.
