COCO CAPITÁN

THANKS TO HER COLLABORATIONS WITH GUCCI, THE 26-YEAR-OLD SPANISH ARTIST HAS BECOME A STAR OF THE FASHION WORLD. BUT THAT’S FAR FROM ALL SHE HAS TO OFFER, AS HER FIRST EUROPEAN SOLO SHOW, AT PARIS’S MAISON EUROPÉENE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, AND HER EXCLUSIVE SELF-PORTRAITS FOR NUMÉRO ART MAKE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR.

Imagine a child’s handwriting, narrow words with hard edges expressing a desperate desire to communicate even a simple meaning. Artist, photographer and Gucci wunderkind Coco Capitán has developed a very successful visual practice from this starting point. At 26, she’s just put on her first European solo show at Paris’s Maison européene de la photographie, done billboards with Gucci, guest-edited an art issue of Vogue and illustrated the cover of a Drake recording. The Spaniard, who retains the accent of her native Seville, comes across as serious and considered, though her work is also humorous and playful. Capitán moved to London at the age of 17, graduating with an MA in fine-art photography at the Royal College of Art in 2016. Throughout her studies she was working, developing her clean aesthetic approach to photography alongside her experiments with text and painting. She has created commercial campaigns and look books with Paco Rabanne, Maison Margiela, Miu Miu, APC and Mulberry, and fashion editorial in Dazed, Vogue, Self Service, Document, i-d and Garage. Social media helped develop her audience, her work resonating with a generation looking for quick bites of intimacy.

What is interesting about her approach to text is that English is not her first language, the result consequently feeling more spontaneous and perhaps universal. Her pieces are perfect Instagram poetry. Capitan’s process always begins with her notebooks. “I’ve been writing notebooks pretty much since I first learned to write,” she explains. “Somehow, I feel a little bit lost-in-translation sometimes. I think that makes me appreciate the language in a different way.” This is language at its most aesthetic and emotional, often with reversed letters, crossed-out words and other mistakes. “It’s based on how I actually write,” Capitán notes. “I think it’s important for other people to see that you make mistakes when you write.” For Capitán, writing is a way to break through digital overload. “I always think, ‘How can I get this through other people’s minds without stealing too much of their time?’ That’s like the whole reason to make one really short sentence that can have as much meaning as

possible.” Capitán’s resistance to the digital is also seen in her photography, which she shoots on film: “I’m very interested in everything that can happen outside of a computer. My upbringing was really burdened by technology.”

Bodies are the most recurrent subject in her photos and occasional film experiments. She created a short film for web platform Nowness structured around profiles of people discussing their relationship to their physicality. There are a lot of naked people in her portfolio – often in socks. “I’m very into the naked body because it’s not enclosed, it’s not someone trying to tell you who they are. I work a lot in fashion, so whenever I get to photograph someone without their clothes I feel like I have the freedom to explore them as individuals.” Socks are a personal fetish. “I love knee socks. I think they make legs look beautiful. I guess in my universe, people will always be naked wearing socks.” For a time, she tried to separate her commercial work from her personal practice, but increasingly realized it was not an issue. “There was a lot of embarrassment and rejection in the sense that I always wanted to be an artist. I didn’t want to be a fashion photographer. I realized that I was being quite snobbish,” she recalls. One breakthrough was her collaborations with Gucci, who she first worked with in 2015. Gucci toured an exhibition of her work, used it on billboards and even incorporated her texts onto sweatshirts, bags and T- shirts. “It’s a collaboration with Alessandro Michele whose work I really admire. Everything that they stand for is what I stand for, too,” Capitán enthuses.

Institutions are also paying attention. Former Tate Modern curator Simon Baker has given Capitán her first European museum show in Paris, which follows her first international solo exhibition – Is it Tomorrow Yet? – at the Daelim Museum in Seoul last year. There are 150 works in Paris, including images exploring her childhood relationship with China and pictures of the Spanish Olympic synchronized-swimming team. There’s something Pop in Capitan, who notes her admiration for Maurizio Cattelan, Elmgreen and Dragset, and Kerry James Marshall – all artists who twist popular imagery in different vibrant ways. But she’s not limited in her influences. “I love hyperrealist paintings, Renaissance art, Japanese furniture design. I love cuisine and I get really inspired by good food.” What comes across is a desire for authenticity and originality. “Everyone has a voice but we are lost in between so many voices.” Her phrases are where she highlights that frustration for a new generation. As she once wrote, “If you’ve seen it all, close your eyes.”