2003 Infinity Award: Applied/Fashion/Advertising

Thái Công was born in the early hours of January 1, 1972, in Saigon, Vietnam, to a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother. His parents would not only support their son’s art, but play a central role in it. Công moved with his family to Germany at the age of 9, and there nurtured a budding interest in fashion and style. He attended the Academie JAK in Hamburg and worked as a freelance stylist. 

My Parents: An Homage to Fashion, Photography, and Life, published by Edition Stemmle, is a highly conceptual collection of fashion photographs that depict his parents dressed in the most current clothes and jewelry from preeminent designers such as Louis Vuitton, Yohji Yamamoto, and Yves Saint Laurent. Công recruited fashion photographers to participate in the project. The juxtaposition of high style and the character of older subjects is an almost revolutionary approach to fashion photography, where such clothes are almost exclusively seen on youthful, sculptured bodies. Công’s work with My Parents is rooted in Asian traditions of venerating one’s elders, but incorporates European and American fashion sensibilities. As such, these photographs reflect Công’s interest in both Eastern and Western artistic and social principles.