Studying the best ways to divide and organise a space while putting together an exhibition is of crucial importance to guarantee a pleasant experience for the visitors and therefore the success of the event. An in-depth study of spaces and architectures was the starting point behind the Felipe Oliveira Baptista exhibition, currently on at the Museu do Design e da Moda (MUDE/Design and Fashion Museum) in Lisbon, Portugal.
Co-curated by Bárbara Coutinho, MUDE Director, with Felipe Oliveira Baptista and with scenes by Alexandre de Betak (Bureau Betak), the event traces the career of the young Portuguese designer. Born in 1975 in the Azores, Baptista launched his label in 2003, with his first collection entitled "Stripes-on-Strike" debuting at Paris Fashion Week. A member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, Baptista was appointed in 2010 artistic director at Lacoste.
Mirrors play an important role in the exhibition: in fiction and fairytales, mirrors are superficial objects and symbols of vanity, but in this case they are used as architectural elements. Mirrors intersect indeed the museum space at different angles and directions reflecting images of the garments and multiplying them, breaking the reality to recreate a series of images.
Around 80 garments from different collections are showcased divided in five different sections: "Protection", a theme that moves from the traditional costume of the Azores, a dark and hooded long cloak that shelters and cocoons the body; "New uniforms and workwear", that is functional wear favouring comfort, strength, movement and freedom, with some references to military uniforms; "Revisiting the classics", a section that plays around the feminine/masculine dichotomy and gives a nod to Coco Chanel's little black dress, and to Yves Saint Laurent' Le Smoking; "Variable geometries", examining graphics, patterns, prints and volumes, and "Technology Vs Nature", a theme that tackles the designer's fascination with spaceships and aircrafts, but also with animals, birds, reptiles and fossils.
One of the reasons that prompted Bárbara Coutinho, MUDE Director, to invite Baptista is the modus operandi of this young designer and his passion for archives. The core of the event is indeed the "Screen To The Brain" installation conceived as a complex atlas of images, designed by Alexandre de Betak and produced by Bureau Betak.
A selection of images - among them drawings, catwalk show pictures, images of Mexican wrestlers, punks, miners and astronauts, mixed and combined with a variety of photographs referencing Louise Bourgeois, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Pina Bausch, Banksy, Naum Gabo and Stanley Kubrick - are projected on several screens of different sizes, inviting the public to discover Baptista's creative process by exploring his archival mind.
What prompted the MUDE to organise the first major solo exhibition of Felipe Oliveira Baptista?
Bárbara Coutinho: As Director of the museum I invited Felipe already two years ago for two main reasons: first because one of the goals of the museum is to promote, study and support Portuguese design talents. We have been doing that displaying designers who are in their thirties and offering them in this way the opportunity to show to the public their previous collections while looking back on their work as well. Presenting Portuguese designers so that they can become more known both locally and internationally is indeed one of the goals of the museum. The second reason why we picked Felipe is obviously the quality of his work: I was already familiar not just with his garments but with his creative process. Felipe takes photos, grabs ideas from architecture, photography, fine art and the natural world and puts together a book for each collection. When I invited him to exhibit his work I wanted the event to highlight also this aspect.
There seems to be a good interaction, almost a dialogue, between the architecture of the museum and the garments: was the space taken into account while designing this event?
Bárbara Coutinho: We had a successful meeting with Felipe and Bureau Betak when we started working on the event and organising the production. I usually tell the architect or designer the museum works with on an exhibition that they have to respect the space and integrate it in the context of the exhibition, engaging it in a dialogue with the objects. When Alexandre de Betak and Felipe visited the space I really felt they understood what I meant and grasped very clearly the philosophy of the museum. You see, the museum is located in a building that was the headquarter of a bank, and, at the beginning of the 21st century, it was almost completely destroyed. We normally use the ruined bit both for heritage and aesthetic reasons, taking advantage of the space it creates in different exhibitions, so that the space and the museum architecture turn into the main material for our exhibitions. The first proposal by de Betak was already strong, but we had to stay within our budget, so, while we changed it a bit, we tried to essentially stick with that main draft. Sometimes when you visit an exhibition with a very strong architectural concept you have the impression that the objects have been silenced, but in our case there is a good balance as the space is reflected in the mirrors. Visitors can therefore see the garments in a new perspective, and admire them up close, without having to struggle to see the details through vitrines and display cases.
Can you tell us more about the selection process you went through with Felipe Oliveira Baptista?
Bárbara Coutinho: Felipe loves archives, so he had in his offices in Paris all the notebooks and materials about the past collections. We started going through the notebooks, then we had some talking sessions and he gave me a book that featured small pictures of all the collections. I suggested him some themes and we ended up with five major thematic sections and started selecting the garments accordingly. Our first selection featured 200 pieces and we eventually arrived at a coherent selection that featured around 80 pieces. Selecting the proper pieces was a very important process as we had to make sure that each of them worked well with the surrounding spaces.
Can you make us an example about a thematic section engaging in an architectural dialogue with the building?
Bárbara Coutinho: One of the themes of the exhibition is innovative geometry, so in this space we created different geometries with a corridor of mirrors. The pieces from Felipe's “Stripes-on-Strike” collection reflect in the mirror, so that the stripes are multiplied, creating a continuous effect that attracts the attention and helps communicating to the public the main idea behind the collection. The centre of the exhibition represents the brain of the designers with projections of images of lookbooks, photographs and catwalk shows: this represents an invitation to the public to get into Felipe's brain and discover his creative process. In this way it is easy for the public to relate to the outfits and the garments as they understand the process behind them.
Which is your favourite group or collection?
Bárbara Coutinho: I particularly love the "Protection" section with Felipe's coats in black and dark blue as they make a really powerful and strong group, and the section dedicated to reinvented and reinterpreted classics such as men's tuxedo suits.
Was there anything that surprised you while working on this exhibition or anything that you suddenly discovered about Felipe Oliveira Baptista's work?
Bárbara Coutinho: I have been curating several exhibitions, and there is always something that surprises me. You can learn a lot from books and from your personal researches and investigations, but you always find something fresh and intuitive when you put the pieces in a space gallery and you see how some of them become the protagonists of your narrative, showing a quality and a strength that is unique. For example, while working on the main five themes, we had the impression that the group of garments under the "Protection" section would have been strong, but we didn't imagine that this group would have been so powerful. One of the things that became clear while we put the exhibition together was also Felipe's DNA, a sort of coherence that characterises all his work, but also this trend that he has developed for a simplification of forms and a reduction towards more minimalist shapes.
Will the exhibition travel anywhere else?
Bárbara Coutinho: We made a large investment with this exhibition, it was an important commitment especially in these times of crisis in Portugal. While I do hope it will travel, I can tell you that this particular exhibition is site specific, so, if you will see it anywhere else, it will look completely different. That's why I would urge you to come and see it in Lisbon as the event looks really unique!
"Felipe Oliveira Baptista" is on at the Museu do Design e da Moda (MUDE), Rua Augusta 24, 1100-053 Lisbon, Portugal, until 16th February 2014.
Image credits for this post
Photographs of "Felipe Oliveira Baptista" at MUDE, Lisbon © Fernando Guerra
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