Bruce Asbestos uses AI to create Bauhaus-inspired designs for new fashion exhibitions – This free exhibition showcases Asbestos’s signature blend of fashion, art, pop culture and technology. It displays the artist’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated fashion designs for his Autumn Winter 2024 Collection, shown alongside a curated selection of films of his fashion catwalks exhibited as immersive, large-scale projections.
For his A/W 2024 Collection, Asbestos draws on his fascination with the Bauhaus movement. The Bauhaus began in 1919 as a school for arts and crafts and started a powerful movement that would alter the course of art history, influencing graphic design, architecture, interiors, and furniture design.
Using the Bauhaus core principles and archive black and white images as the foundation for his AI prompts Asbestos has transformed the designs into a real-life fashion catwalk. The resulting monochrome designs are a testament to the enduring impact of the Bauhaus ethos, reimagined for the digital age. Sleek lines, bold colours, and geometric forms merge with cutting-edge materials, 3D printing to create garments that are at once timeless and futuristist
Bauhaus was much more than an architectural style; it was a new way of thinking. Many Bauhaus designs were not possible at the time because the manufacturing technology was not available until decades later. I’m curious about what Bauhaus artists would have made of the possibilities of AI and wanted to channel their ethos of optimism and progression into my work
says Bruce Asbestos.
Many clothing brands now use AI to help the design processes, with images of clothes generated from typed prompts, visualising different materials and patterns. However, AI masks the hidden labour of fashion design. It creates striking images without considering the structural intricacies of garment construction or even the physical feasibility of certain designs. AI designs do not showcase the reverse side of a garment or explain how it should be assembled. This limitation inadvertently conceals the human effort required to transform these digital concepts into tangible, wearable pieces.
As Bruce Asbestos says,
During the project, I started thinking that the imperfections in the physical fashion designs are somehow a sign that humans have been here
We are proud to be hosting the first exhibition of Bruce Asbestos’ iconic catwalks here at Leicester Gallery”
The exhibition, including the film of the latest catwalk, AW2024, works both as a dramatic sculptural installation drawing on the aesthetics of high-end retail and a reflection on the interweaving of visual economies of haute couture and contemporary art.
“Through his shrewd use of social media, personal re-hashing of global pop culture and use of new digital technologies, he has established an unmistakable visual identity and unique brand (complete with logos) to almost become a living artwork.” – Art Review
East Midlands based artist Bruce Asbestos earned a degree in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University, winning a scholarship at Musashino University in Tokyo, and went on to attend the Hive business school. He obtained a Master’s Degree at Nottingham Trent, during which he was awarded a scholarship at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Exhibitions and projects include Mega Bunny & Friends (SPILL Festival), Bootleg Shreg & Friends (Humber Street Gallery), Eye of Newt 2.0 (QUAD, Derby), New British Informal (Browns East, London), Burple Purple (Recent Activity, Birmingham), Ok! Cherub! (Bluecoat, Liverpool), S/S 2021 (Power, National Justice Museum), S/S 2020 (Bonington Gallery), Bruce Asbestos X Juliana Sissons (Primary), A/W Collection (Kunstraum, London), A/W 2018 (Nottingham Contemporary), an Arts Council International Fund project to NYC and Philadelphia, and Bruce Asbestos A-B Testing (Concrete, Hayward Gallery, London). Asbestos was also commissioned by EM15 for ‘Sunscreen’ at the Venice Biennale and participated in the Ivan Poe / Reactor project for the Plymouth Art Weekender. In 2013/4, he was nominated for the £300,000 Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Fund. Bruce Asbestos’ artworks have been accessioned into the Government Art Collection and the collection of the National Justice Museum.
Recent and current projects include The Hooboos at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International (June 2024), and an exhibition of inflatable sculptures at Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham (1 August to 8 September). The Hooboos will tour to Rosehill Theatre, Whitehaven, Cumbria (August 24-31) and Ah Haa School for the Arts Telluride, Colorado (19-21 July)
In 2024 Bruce Asbestos became CEO of his own company Bruce Asbestos Ltd.
Origins of Imagination fuses art, technology, and nature, inviting visitors of all ages to co-create a continuously evolving digital collection of butterflies
