Paradise of passion, temptation, seduction, obsession, glamour, poison, stimulation, sublimation, phantasy ... and love. Choose your true wish ... inhale it !

Elisabeth Kopf interview

This is the first solo exhibition in Japan by Elisabeth Kopf, an illustrious Austrian graphic designer based in Vienna. She was selected to become a member of the prestigious AGI (International Association of Graphic Designers) in 2006.
Kopf works with visual concepts that have been refined and manipulated in order to take into account the potential responses the work will arouse in the viewer. Her work is also possessed of a generous vision and full of emotional affect, reflecting her belief in the power of communication to connect people. In order to help kick her own smoking habit, she started the "Air Cigarette" series of works in 2002 as an art project. This is the Tokyo version of that project, showcasing a total of 6 related works.

Air cigarettes °° ° ° encourage smokers to kick the habit without giving up the pleasure, they are effective against smokable substance abuse of all kinds, especially nicotine addiction.
As opposed to the usual moralizing approach to get people to give up smoking, air cigarettes °° ° ° employ a sensual and playful strategy for kicking the habit. The air cigarette is both accomplice and temptress, its therapeutic effect is based on a positive pleasure stimulus.
The air cigarette °° ° ° basic module is a starter kit consisting of twenty air cigarettes and a cigarette packet, printed on paper, for cutting out and pasting together.
These paper, nicotine-substitute cigarettes, through which one smokes pure air, are intended to help the smoker get through the withdrawal phase.
Air ° cigarette is a splendid design object with cult qualities and the potential to draw the attention of large audiences to the pleasurable aspects of "nonsmoking."

Magazine installation
Tokyo ideal ° air cigarettes are cut directly into the magazines pages, a little band made of real gold holds each cigarette together.

Cherry Typhoon, inspirational artist of Typhoon Cigarettes °
live performance at gallery ef, Tokyo, April 24 2008