Bob Basset

Bob Basset is a Ukrainian art studio that works in the field of object design. The studio creates art objects from various materials, primarily leather and bone, metal, wood, stone, glass and others. Bob Basset created masks and other products for Givenchy,^[1] Panos Yiapanis, RSA Films, members of Metallica, Slipknot, Korn and Tantric. Publications about Bob Basset appeared in T: The New York Times Style Magazine,^[2] WAD magazine,^[3] VICE UK,^[4] Bizarre Magazine, INSIDE artzine magazine.

The studio’s co-founder Serhii Petrov believes that it works in new genre of “techno-romanticism”, invented by Bob Bassets's designers.

History

Bob Basset studio was founded as a workshop by brothers Serhii and Oleg Petrov in Kharkiv in 1989 and named after their basset hound Bob. The workshop produced leather accessories, souvenir knives and sheaths. The studio began publishing their work in LiveJournal in 2004.

The first foreign publications about Bob Basset appeared in the British Bizarre Magazine and in the blog Boing Boing.^[5] Canadian sci- fi writer Cory Doctorow, co-founder of the blog BoingBoing became interested in Bob Basset's mask on eBay. Doctorow shared his finding with fans and sci-fi writer William Gibson, who called this mask "Probably the single best steampunk object I've seen".^[4]

2007

Bob Basset's leather paws shoes appeared in The New York Times Fashion Magazine. Since 2007, the studio's products have been regularly presented at Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days and the Ukrainian Fashion Week, where Bob Basset cooperated with Ukrainian brands sasha.kanevski and Valery Kovalska and other designers.

2009

Four of Bob Basset's masks were purchased for the film Parallel Lines by Ridley Scott's RSA Film company.^[6]

2010

Vogue International published 12 pages of stylistic fantasies by Panos Yiapanis with masks by Bob Basset.^[7] Studio's leather masks became the central element of men's Spring/Summer 2011 collection by Givenchy, shown at the Paris Fashion Week. Later, those masks were used in Givenchy's promotional posters.^[8] Zac Baird, the keyboardist, collaborating with Korn, wore a horse mask by Bob Basset on tour.^[4]

2012

Bob Basset took part in European exhibitions Futur Anterieur (Paris)^[9] and The Great Steampunk Exhibition (London).

2013

A member of Slipknot Sid Wilson purchased one of Bob Basset's masks and wore it as a part of his show image. Masks can be seen in Slipknot’s “The Devil in I”^[10] and “Killpop”^[11] music videos. Later Wilson starred in Avril Lavigne's "Rock N Roll" music video,^[12] wearing Bob Basset mask as well. Another of Bob Basset's masks appeared in the musical film "Metallica: Through the Never".^[13] Bob Basset took part in "Futur anterieur" exhibition in New York and in “Steampunk Art” exhibitions in Seoul and Beijing.^[14]

2014

Bob Basset's masks were used for the promotional campaign of TNT's "The Last Ship".^[15] Bob Basset created Mask of Maidan, which was dedicated to the journalists, who suffered during the confrontation at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, Ukraine. The mask was auctioned, and all funds were used to support "Hromadske" public channel.^[16][17] Bob Basset presented "Mashrabiya" collection at Ukrainian Fashion Week.^[18] In the same year the mask from this collection has been used in the photo shoot of Elizabeth Banks for Flaunt Magazine.^[19] Bob Basset created the mask for motorcycle concept “Sturmvögel”, created by Ukrainian ICM (Iron Custom Motorcycles) company.^[20] Bob Basset took part in "Futur anterieur" exhibition in Hong Kong.

2015

Bob Basset presented his masks and art-performance "Behind the mask" at Gogolfest. Bob Basset presented "ΣΑΛΩΜΗΣ" collection at Ukrainian Fashion Week.^[21] The studio made a mask of "Stalker" for Plarium's “Total Domination” MMO game.

2016

Bob Basset produced the second mask for ICM. The mask will be used for the new speed record project “Lake Bonneviile”.^[22] Vogue.com included Bob Basset as one of the 9 elements of Ukrainian fashion revolution.^[23] Bob Basset's mask was used in Otep's "Generation Doom" music video.^[24]

2017

In January Bob Basset presents preview of its first solo exhibition "Entity" in "parfum büro" gallery.^[25] Later, in March "Entity" was shown in "Bereznitsky Aesthetics" gallery. Items for "Entity" was gathered from private collections all over the world.^[26] First collaboration of Italian brand Balossa and Bob Basset was presented at Lviv Fashion Week.^[27] In May Bob Basset's artworks was shown in Kharkiv for the first time. Exhibition was part of Museum Night in YermilovCentre.^[28]

Products

Masks

Bob Basset best known for its masks, which the authors attribute to “techno-romanticism”. There is a variety of masks of demons, zombies, unicorns, aliens, superheroes (including Batman), plague doctors, animals, dragons, and even a mask with the face of the statue of David by Michelangelo and series of Cthulhu mask. As a part of the art project "Survivors" in 2015 and 2016 Bob Basset made 17 miniature replicas of its own masks for Easter eggs. Overall, the studio has produced about 1,000 masks over the years.

While most of the masks were made as independent objects, the studio made two independent collection of masks: Mashrabiya (2014) and ΣΑΛΩΜΗΣ (2015).

Dragons

In 2006, the studio released "Dragon Backpack".^[29] Works from the "Dragons bags" series are in private collections in Australia, Ukraine, Russia, USA and Taiwan. In addition, Bob Basset created handbags and other accessories in the Dragon style. The last one was “Corset” (spine).

Bags

The studio also produces bags in the form of masks: “Catwoman” for the Italian online retailer Luisa Via Roma, “Hanibal Lecter” and bags in the shape of insects (beetles, moths, spiders), bags in the form of grenades, dragons and others.

Other accessories

Bob Basset's activity started with armor making for historic military costume fans. There were vambraces, pauldrons, cuirasses, leather helmets. Studio also produces bracelets, lavaliers, pendants, leather Christmas decorations^[30] and other accessories. Another direction of the studio's work is artificial sapphire knives with different handles, decorated with leather, wood and bone.

Materials and techniques

Bob Basset designers work with leather, artificial sapphire, valuable woods, brass, copper, steel. But the favorite material is leather.

Studio's designers are constantly experimenting, looking for new technologies that would allow them to realize the most daring ideas. They are actively trying new materials (synthetic sapphire, sturgeon's leather) and combining them with the common leather, wood, bone, metal. At the same time, the studio is engaged in restoration of old techniques of leatherwork: ancient technology of manufacturing high-strength leather armor known as “cuir bouilli” (boiled leather), volume stamping, etc.

References

External links

• bobbasset.com