Bob Basset


Bob Basset is a Ukrainian art studio that works in the field of wearable art. 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, Panos Yiapanis, RSA Films, members of Slipknot, Korn and Tantric. Bob Basset's masks used in music videos and films of Ridley Scott's RSA Films, Avril Lavigne,. Publications about Bob Basset appeared in, WAD magazine, VICE UK, Bizarre Magazine, Playboy, INSIDE artzine magazine, Vogue International, METCHA.
The studio’s co-founder Serhii Petrov believes that it works in a new genre of “techno-romanticism”, invented by Bob Basset.

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. 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".
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.
2010
Vogue International published 12 pages of stylistic fantasies by Panos Yiapanis with masks by Bob Basset. 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. Zac Baird, the keyboardist, collaborating with Korn, wore a horse mask by Bob Basset on tour.
2012
Bob Basset took part in European exhibitions Futur Anterieur and The Great Steampunk Exhibition.
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” and “Killpop” music videos. Later Wilson starred in Avril Lavigne's "Rock N Roll" music video, wearing Bob Basset mask as well. Another of Bob Basset's masks appeared in the musical film "". Bob Basset took part in "Futur anterieur" exhibition in New York and in “Steampunk Art” exhibitions in Seoul and Beijing.
2014
Bob Basset's masks were used for the promotional campaign of TNT's "The Last Ship". 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. Bob Basset presented "Mashrabiya" collection at Ukrainian Fashion Week. In the same year the mask from this collection has been used in the photo shoot of Elizabeth Banks for Flaunt Magazine. Bob Basset created the mask for motorcycle concept “Sturmvögel”, created by Ukrainian ICM company. 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. 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”. Vogue.com included Bob Basset as one of the 9 elements of Ukrainian fashion revolution. Bob Basset's mask was used in Otep's "Generation Doom" music video.
2017
In January Bob Basset presents preview of its first solo exhibition "Entity" in "parfum büro" gallery. Later, in March "Entity" was shown in "Bereznitsky Aesthetics" gallery. Items for "Entity" was gathered from private collections all over the world. First collaboration of Italian brand Balossa and Bob Basset was presented at Lviv Fashion Week. In May Bob Basset's artworks was shown in Kharkiv for the first time. Exhibition was part of Museum Night in YermilovCentre.
2018
The co-founder of the Bob Basset art studio Sergii Petrov and street artist Gamlet Zinkovsky – are displaying their artworks in Lima, Peru, from February 10 to March 3. The artists arrived in Peru’s capital at the invitation of a local artist Conrad Florez and they arranged a NEGRO exhibition together with him and another Peruvian artist Andrea Barreda. Currently, the art center Monumental Callao is showing six masks by Sergii Petrov and 23 drawings by Gamlet, while the Peruvians presented three of their paintings.. The Lithuanian electrofashion duo Beissoul & Einius presented a new video for the track "Rooftop", created in collaboration with the Bob Basset. They had already collaborated in the framework of the Photography of Visitors with Dmitry Komissarenko, published in the magazine DESIGN SCENE earlier.
On September 4, the art studio together with the artist Hamlet Zinkovsky presented the "Objects" at the Yermilov Contemporary Art Center, the first full-fledged joint exhibition in their home city Kharkiv. Bob Basset presented 19 leather masks and a steampunk dog. There was also presented a joint video work of the art studio and Hamlet, and several experiments for the audience. Bob Basset made an art object out of five old full-length mirrors: they had etched amalgam in a place where people usually see their own faces, and masks behind this hole. Looking at such mirror, the visitor could see his own reflection, where instead of the face there was one of Bob Basset's masks. At the end of the tour, visitors were offered an art dash: the ability to shoot or not to shoot at art objects. In total, "Items" gathered more than 1,000 visitors on opening day and more than 15,000 throughout the entire exhibit. According to the director of "YermilovCenter" Natalia Ivanova, the exhibition became the most visited in all those years that she heads the center and the most visited exhibition of the year in Kharkiv. On November 23, "Items" were shown at the "Jump" gallery in Poltava.
In November, Bob Basset and shoe brand Ganor Dominic made a collaborational project.
2019
The "Items" exhibition was partially presented at Ukrainian Fashion Week. For the first time, the exhibition featured the ironic installation of Bob Basset's "Calvary" with eggs clothed in miniatures of the iconic art studios' leather masks. Previously, it was shown as a photo project only. "Calvary" first public appearance was dedicated to the world record egg phenomenon.
2020
Bob Basset helped create images for the "Flames" music video by R3hab & Zayn & Jungleboi. The two masks became expressive features of the guards’ images. In view of the pandemic, Bob Basset came up with a mask that everyone can create yourself in 5 minutes. All you need is a piece of paper and a rubber band.

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, 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 collections of masks: Mashrabiya and ΣΑΛΩΜΗΣ.

Dragons

In 2006, the studio released "Dragon Backpack". 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”.

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, 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 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 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”, volume stamping, etc.