An intriguing location can reveal a lot about a fashion collection or the inspirations employed by a particular designer. In some cases the actual spaces where a fashion presentation or a photoshoot take place become the real protagonists. This is definitely the case with the Spring/Summer 2017 Atelier Eclècktica line by Como-based Roberta Redaelli.
At times Redaelli seems to be more interested in industrial processes (she is into bio-medicine and patented the Dinami-Tecs process that allows to produce a textile that has all the characteristics of a knitted piece) and for this collection the designer, who previous showed a passion for architectural perspectives and industrial spaces, moved from the works of Geneva-based artist André Bucher.
The latter is inspired in his works by the power of vulcanoes and fascinated by the energy, colours and consistence of lava. Redaelli borrowed from Bucher's the main shades for her prints - revolving around a lava red, bronze and a dirty yellow palette - while the artist's cracked paintings in natural tones such as terracotta and grey, inspired the surface elaborations.
The most interesting thing about this collection is the fact that it was shot (by Guido Taroni) in a historical space, the Milan-based Fonderia Artistica Battaglia (Battaglia Artistic Foundry). The images for Redaelli's collection were taken among the models and materials tracing back the history of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia.
The Battaglia Foundry has got a very arty history: founded in 1913, it produces through the lost-wax bronze casting process bronze sculptures on commission and collaborates to various art and design projects, while it is also known for restoring damaged art pieces.
The Foundry has collaborated throughout the decades with famous artists including Alik Cavaliere, Kengiro Azuma, Marino Marini, Giuseppe Penone, Giacomo Manzù, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Giannino Castiglioni, Francesco Messina, Alighiero Boetti, Guido Galletti and Lucio Fontana.
Currently under the management of FAI - the Italian Artistic Foundation looking after historic and artistic sites - the Foundry has also launched new projects with young designers and during the FuoriSalone 2017 at the recent Milan Design Week, it unveiled a special interior design project by Roberto Sironi.
You can bet the foundry will at some point become the location of a Milanese catwalk show in a not so distant future. Just wait for more fashion designers to rediscover it.
Stepping into a magnificently monumental building - think about an ancient church or a grand house - often fills you with a sense of awe. Yet architecture is not the only thing that may induce in a visitor a sense of dizziness, fashion can indeed contribute to do the same, especially when it is carefully assembled and displayed.
This is definitely the case with "House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth" currently on at Chatsworth House, in the heart of Derbyshire Peak District National Park, home to the Cavendish family since the 16th century.
The residence of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and quite often employed as the grand set for a variety of historical films, Chatsworth House is considered as one of the most elegant mansions in the British countryside.
Curated by Hamish Bowles, International Editor-at-Large at American Vogue, with creative direction and design by costume historian and curator Patrick Kinmonth and his creative partner Antonio Monfredo, the show could be described as a lavish display of power chronicling the lives of the Cavendish family members.
The idea for this the event came from a simple search that revealed a treasure trove: years ago former model, stylist, Roland Mouret muse, fashion buyer and wife of the heir to the estate Laura Roundell was looking with her mother in law (the current Duchess of Devonshire) for a christening robe for her son.
A research in the house's textile department produced not one but many christening robes and she soon realised the potential of the materials in the family archive to tell the story of the members of the Cavendish family.
Six years and many closets, cupboards and attics later (images chronicling the selection show garments and accessories painstakingly arranged on tables and along rolling racks) the exhibition became a reality.
Sponsored by Gucci (the design house shot its 2017 cruise advertising campaign in the grounds of the mansion last year), the resulting exhibition is the largest one ever held at Chatsworth, occupying most rooms in the house.
The various spaces are organised by themes (Coronation Dress; Bess of Hardwick and the Tudor Influence; The Devonshire House Ball; The Georgiana Effect; and Country Living and Entertaining at Chatsworth) and the main point of the first section is establishing a historical and temporal context, while exploring the theme of fashion and adornment.
The story starts in the 16th century with Bess of Hardwick, continuing with the 18th century "Empress of Fashion" Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, a fashion leader and the equivalent of today's "influencers" since her taste for romantic style was also celebrated at the French court of her friend Queen Marie Antoinette.
Georgiana's style also inspired contemporary designers as proved by a Christian Dior by John Galliano gown (1998 Spring/Summer Haute Couture collection) on display in the South Sketch Gallery, together with portraits of the Duchess.
In the same space there is a portrait of Elizabeth I in a gown given to her by Bess of Hardwick, and nearby there is a modern version of the gown by Gucci's Alessandro Michele (the house, but also Deborah "Debo" Devonshire's wardrobe and her collection of bug and butterfly brooches undoubtedly influenced the creative director who seems to have a passion for history and antiques).
The first rooms mainly feature archive materials from the family collections, among them livery, uniforms, rare costume designs from the early 17th century by Inigo Jones (Surveyor to the King's Works and one of the most notable architects of 17th century England) and coronation robes, while the christening robe that originally inspired the idea for this event became part of a display about the circle of life, alongside wedding and funeral attire.
Among the most extravagant pieces there are the fancy-dress costumes like the ones from the 1897 Devonshire House Ball that featured 400 guests and was inspired by the theme "allegorical or historical costume before 1815".
Showcased in the State Drawing Room and set amongst original furniture, the display includes an ostrich, amethysts and pearls feather headdress remade by jeweller CW Sellors, and originally donned by Duchess Louise for the 1897 ball that was matched with a dress made for her by Jean-Philippe Worth to impersonate Zenobia, the warrior Queen of Palmyra.
The story continues through letters, photos and scrapbooks, with a look at Adele Astaire, the sister and dance partner of Fred Astaire, who married Charles Cavendish, younger brother of the tenth Duke of Devonshire, in 1932 (her old annotated copies of Vogue, portraits and a short film of her dancing are included); Deborah "Debo" Devonshire and Nancy Mitford, two of the Mitford sisters (the slippers emblazoned with pictures of Elvis belonged to Debo, a fan), and John F Kennedy's sister Kathleen ("Kick"), who married Billy Cavendish in 1944 (killed in action shortly afterward; while she died in a plane crash not long after).
In some of the displays history is combined with art, fashion, jewellery, and interior design, while Haute Couture pieces such as Debo's Christian Dior ice pink satin 1953 "Carmel" gown, the centerpiece of the State Dining Room, seem to dialogue with more modern designs from Laura's own wardrobe, including pieces by Gucci, Helmut Lang, Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Erdem, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane and Vêtements.
Traditions are juxtaposed to transgressions: the house's chapel includes Antonio Verrio's 17th-century ceiling painting "The Incredulity of St. Thomas" but also Damien Hirst's sculpture "Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain".
In the same way, the conventional coronation dresses create constrasts with modern times and rebel heirs such as supermodel Stella Tennant, granddaughter of Andrew Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, photographed with her grandmother Deborah Mitford Devonshire, the 11th Duchess, at Chatsworth for Vogue in 2010 by Mario Testino.
You can't really find any faults in the curators' selection and in the layout: everything has indeed been taken care of in the smallest details to create infinite correspondences, a belt buckle becomes a token to tell the story of Bess of Hardwick, while the nose ring sported by Stella Tennant, introduces a modern tale in the Steven Meisel shoot for Vogue's December 1993 story "Anglo-Saxon Attitude".
Paper designs - Stephen Jones' fascinator made from the pages of a Robert Burns poetry book for Stella Tennant and Hussein Chalayan's paint-splattered paper dress - are very aptly located in the library.
More radical fashion fans may not like this display of grandeur mixed to aristocratic silliness (see the 22 bespoke slogan woollen navy jumpers embroidered for the 11th Duke of Devonshire and reading "Never Marry A Mitford," "Never argue with a Cadogan," "Get Up and Do Something," and so on), while fans of national treasures may complain about the more modern styles and fashions included in the event.
Yet, "House Style" is a way to explore an extravagantly gilded lifestyle most of us don't have access to through art, history, fashion, and interior design; in the same way, combining McQueen and Gucci with a world carefully preserved in tissue paper is a way to attract new and younger visitors to a historical mansion.
Visitors who may want to know more about "House Style" or those fashion fans who may not be able to see the exhibition in person, can check out the glamour and elegance Bowles & Co spread around the mansion in the eponymous volume recently published by Rizzoli that documents the exhibition and the work that went behind the scenes.
"House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth" runs until 22nd October 2017.
All images in this post courtesy of the Chatsworth House Trust
Art and fashion fans who will be going to the opening of the Venice Art Biennale next month, should maybe extend their visit to Italy and head to the Museo del Tessuto (Textile Museum) in Prato. The institution is currently putting the final touches to a new exhibition, opening on 14th May.
Entitled "Il Capriccio e la Ragione. Eleganze del Settecento europeo" (Caprice and Reason. Elegant Styles from 18th century Europe), the event explores refined taste in the 18th century and the various trends that developed around this time.
The event promises to be quite rich since it is organised in collaboration with private collections and with other institutions in Italy, including (among the others) the Costume and Fashion Museum of the Gallerie degli Uffizi and the Stibbert Museum in Florence, and the Textile Museum of the Como-based Ratti Foundation.
Located in the section dedicated to antique textiles at the Prato Museum, the exhibition includes around 100 pieces, from textiles to men and women's wear garments and accessories (including shoes, buttons, gloves and hats), from interior design pieces to paintings and engravings, often employed to create links with the decorative elements on the textiles.
The objects and items on display are showcased in a chronological order that allows the curators to tell stories about them, while exploring the trends and fashions from the 1700s.
This rich century saw indeed many revolutions, changes and discoveries, mirrored in the selected pieces on display.
The first theme tackled in the event is the exotic influence: new geographic discoveries, trading expeditions and religious missions introduced Europe to the Far East and merchants started importing refined, elegant and previously unseen luxury pieces.
These objects introduced not just a new taste for materials like lacquer and porcelain, but prompted people to look at innovative techniques, materials, and colour combinations.
The art and works produced by painter and art theorist Charles Le Brun, painter Antoine Watteau, draughtsman, designer, and engraver Jean Berain, and painter and etcher François Boucher open up new correspondences with fashion and textiles.
Paintings and engravings are directly linked in the exhibition with the style of figured fabrics that became popular in the late 17th and early 18th century: the event looks indeed at "Bizarre" silks, fabrics woven in France, Italy and Britain, characterised by large-scale and asymmetrical patterns featuring stylised leaves and flowers; it then moves onto Jean Revel's naturalistic silk style (with themes such as flowers, fruit, shells and landscapes) and then analyses the importance of lace.
Textile fans will love the pieces on display and in particular the rich silks with metallic threads, employed to make extravagant waistcoats juxtaposed to precious Chinese, French and Italian porcelain interior design objects. In some cases, the displays hint at comparisons and contrasts: a waistcoat features for example a rather daring animal motif that was actually fashionable at the time also for fabrics made for interior decor purposes.
The archeological discoveries in the mid-1700s had an impact on fashion and style and the theme of the ruins introduces in the exhibition a sort of new chapter, revolving around nature, art, history and architectural elements, such as classical temples alternated to floral motifs.
The National Library of Florence also supports this exhibition with the loan of volumes from the 17th to the 18th century focusing on decorative elements, on expeditions to India, China and Japan, on interior design, or on archeological subjects that inspired the neoclassical trend.
There are interesting links for example between some of the engravings in the books and the glass and porcelain buttons also included in the event decorated with cameos representing subjects borrowed from the Greek and Roman art, produced by Wedgwood at the end of the 1700s.
Gradually, as rationalism spread, the decorative elements diminished giving more space to stripes, garlands and innovative chromatic palettes in which white, delicate aquamarine and pale shades of pink, blue and yellow, prevailed.
The garments showcased also become a way to explore volumes, shapes and silhouettes: visitors will follow the transition from the robe à la française through the robe à la polonaise to conclude with the classicist robe en chemise, in a fashion trip symbolically representing a cultural and social development.
Accessories are equally important: the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum loaned for this exhibition a group of shoes from the 18th century, the core of a collection that the founder of the house had originally started to study footwear.
There will be more to discover, though, for careful visitors: the garments and accessories on display may reveal wonderful connections with art, but they also show different techniques employed to make them, aspects that visitors with some spare time can study more in depth in other sections of the Prato Textile Museum. The latter is indeed located in a former mill that was active throughout the whole of the 18th century and was then transformed into a well-established company operating in the finishing of textiles.
"Il Capriccio e la Ragione. Eleganze del Settecento europeo" @ The Textile Museum, Prato, Italy, 14th May 2017 - 29th April 2018.
If you have a couple of hours to spare today and you don't know what to do, but have some fabric lying around (1m by 90cm), try to make something for yourself. An idea? Check out this vintage pattern from the late '50s showing a collar with a knot and matching cuffs.
The best results will be obtained with a cotton fabric: the pattern makers suggested a gingham fabric, but the pieces shown (by the way, the pattern is in Italian, remember that collo = collar; nodo = bow; polso = cuff; passante =loop) are versatile and quick to make and could be reproduced in a variety of materials (even in plastic, maybe using a piece of a see-through shower curtain). Enjoy!
Binging on chocolate Easter eggs? Try to detox yourself admiring these "walking on eggshells" shoes integrating in their wedge a fun golden egg and playing around with the idiomatic definition of this phrase.
The "walking on eggs" shoes, designed by Cinzia Galia, are part of the exhibition "From Foot to Head", an event curated by NABA lecturer (and former fashion designer) Cinzia Ruggeri, Aldo Lanzini, MA Fashion and Textile Design Course Leader, and Luca Belotti, academic assistant, and celebrating the MA Fashion and Textile Design students at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano (NABA).
You can read more about it in a previous post, so, for today, relax, read the features in the archive, enjoy your chocolate eggs (or the "walking on eggs" shoes) and have a lovely Easter!
The most interesting thing about it? Definitely not the fact that there is no subtext in such a collaboration (Candy Crush is popular, so Scott opted to come up with a capsule collection that will appeal to a large number of people and that will hopefully sell - if you can afford it: prices go from €45 for a phone case to €475 for the backpack; swimwear is in between - €125 for men; €188 for women).
There is also nothing new about the main theme - sugar rush madness has indeed been on the runway since 2014, so what's the innovative aspect of this capsule collection? Candy Crush has been around for a few years and items inspired - but not authorised - by the app developer (silicone moulds, T-shirts, smartphone covers, belts and other gadgets) have been available on Aliexpress for quite a while now.
Given the fact that Aliexpress resellers got there first, it looks like fashion may be getting the idea from the copyists, but validating it as a legitimate and fully authorised collaboration.
This is actually not the first time a fashion house looks at ideas that, borrowed from the Internet and social media, have been all over Aliexpress (remember Marc Jacobs' laser/space cats T-shirts from his Resort 17 collection Vs the space cat T-shirts on Aliexpress? Which one do you think started producing the laser cats apparel first? View this photo), but it is interesting to wonder what will happen when (smart) unauthorised manufacturers may look for legal partnerships and eventually start producing successful and legal products before fashion houses and labels do so. Guess we will get a satisfactory answer at some point in the (not so distant) future.
The word "shelter" indicates something that covers and offers protection, or an establishment that provides food and refuge. In Moki's book Shelter, published by Gingko Press, the term inspires a series of wood artworks with architectural, philosophical and social twists about them.
The Berlin-based artist and illustrator portraits men and women sleeping on benches, hiding in tunnels or asleep in doorways. Moki's homeless humanity making shelters with shopping carts and scraps of wood hints at economic disparity, but also points at resilience in the face of misery.
Some of these shelters are temporary and they may last only for a few hours; others may be there for months, but, while they are destined to last for a limited amount of time, they are still attempts at recreating a safe home, a snug and concealed nest-like environment, even when their security and privacy are precarious since they are infringed by the fact that they are built in public spaces.
These temporary safe havens are therefore liminal structures, integrated in the urban fabric, yet marginalised at the same time.
There is an obvious architectural edge in these images with tents and hut-like constructions, and other assorted intriguing structures ranging from treehouses to well-stacked rooms underground that look like makeshift fallout shelters.
There is also another theme tackled in Moki's art, the possibility of camouflaging oneself: there is a masked elf-like figure in one of her portraits covered in leaves who may be inspired by Puck out of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream; other men, women or children hide instead among heaps of fabrics or bags, they are sandwiched between piles of mattresses, battle the weather under a coat shared with someone else, or curl, hug and protect each other in a sort of exercise at physical camouflage.
The theme of camouflage is reflected in the technique employed by Moki that allows the artist to create puzzle-like formations on wood.
The artist draws and paints on wood surfaces replicating the textures of wood and the wood grain on the pieces she is working on, orienting herself on the grain direction, picking up on the existing veins and knotholes (a while back Moki employed the camouflage theme in collections of hideout garments that she designed and made by herself to complement her art exhibitions).
There are different inspirations for Moki's works, ranging from her own photographs, taken at times while talking to refugees in Berlin, to paintings such as Caspar David Friedrich's "Sea of Ice" and Ford Madox Brown's "The Last of England" that she reinvented and recreated.
Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space also proved inspirational and extracts from Bachelard's text were included in the volume.
Shelter also features a foreword by Margaret Morton and an interview with Moki by Anika Heusermann.
The most poetical images included in the book can also be read as modern fables with strong roots in contemporary issues relating to homelessness, refugee policy and alienation, but they also end up having more positive meanings.
As Moki explains in the interview in the book, her images of victims of natural disasters, wars or poverty, should make us think and prompt us not to escape into the private sphere and disappear, but to "recognise the forms of protection, refuge and safe havens, and not to recede into one's own shell," and use this recognition as "a powerful motivation for action".
Moki's original artworks for Shelter are on displayat the Goethe-Institut (Bryggargatan 12A) in Stockholm until 31st May.
After much speculation, a few days ago Damien Hirst finally opened his big extravaganza, the glamorous and gross "Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable" exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in Venice. A pile of assorted statues and relics covered in fake corals, the exhibition could be described as what happens when you have too much money and you don't know what to do with it. So, supported by extremely wealthy entrepreneurs - in this case François Pinault (Palazzo Grassi hosts his private art collection) - you organise a massive exhibition.
Hirst admires Jeff Koons and for a bizarre twist of destiny or for rivalry reasons between Pinault and Bernard Arnault (chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy), just two days ago, Louis Vuitton's unveiled its latest arty collaboration - "Masters", a collection of 51 bags, small leather goods, scarves and other assorted accessories designed in collaboration with Koons.
The items include prints of Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "Girl With a Dog", Peter Paul Rubens' "Tiger, Lion and the Leopard Hunt", Titian's "Mars, Venus and Cupid", Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Vincent Van Gogh's "Wheat Field With Cypresses".
The pieces move from Koons' "Gazing Ball" artwork, large-scale hand-painted reproductions of works by Old Masters sprouting a shelf on which he placed a large, blue glass bauble (the "gazing ball") shown at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in 2015.
Koons, who developed the collaboration over one year - added a further touch of bling to the accessories by applying the surnames of the painters in large metallic letters (a nod at hip-hop jewelry?). He self-referenced himself by including a tag with a pink rabbit calling to mind his inflatable works, and adde to the trademark LV monogram his own initials.
The collection launch was accompanied by a video with animated paintings that calls to mind Rino Stefano Tagliafierro's early animated versions of classic paintings (Tagliafierro started doing them in 2014; but if Tagliafierro didn't do the Louis Vuitton video, well, Koons will claim he wasn't copying nor appropriating, just quoting and reinventing...).
For a further arty connection Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari photographed "A Shepherdess Seated With Sheep and a Basket of Flowers Near a Ruin in a Wooded Landscape" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard with one of Koons/Vuitton's bags for Vogue's May 2017 issue.
This is not the first time Koons goes down the fashionable road: in the past he collaborated on one-off projects with Stella McCartney (a necklace and a bracelet) and printed his balloon dogs on bags for H&M.
In the same way, Vuitton took the arty path in previous collaborations with Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and Stephen Sprouse. For Louis Vuitton this is a new collaboration, following the recent one with Supreme, launched during men's fashion week.
While this umpteenth collaboration proves that the luxury market is desperately looking for new and younger consumers, it also highlights a problem – museums are also trying to attract younger audiences. Vuitton's A/W 2017 womenswear show took place at the Louvre in March; the bags were unveiled around the same time (but guests were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements and refrain from taking pictures), before being officially launched with a dinner on Tuesday night again at the Louvre (the "Mona Lisa" is actually the only painting appropriated by Koons that belongs to the museum).
Yet not many young people out there may be able to afford the designs (and it doesn't look like Louis Vuitton will be donating any money to a museum with this collection...).
If you consider that a key chain will set you back about $585 and a large carryall $4,000, you realise that, rather than being post-modernist prank or a charitable effort in the name of culture, this is a commercial tacky exercise for wealthy people, so those ones among us interested in getting an arty souvenir will still have turn to museum gift shops scattered all over the world and to their classic (and affordable) tote bags, scarves, notebooks and pencils with prints of works of art.
In a way, this collection reopens the "Is fashion art?" debate, proving in this case that fashion is not art especially when it consists in stealing a painting that is not legally covered by any copyright anymore, having it printed on an accessory and lazily making them pass for the wonderful original work of a rebel genius.
Yet Koons may actually be a genius at protecting his own stuff: think about it, if as an artist you create a genuinely original print or motif for a fashion house you will definitely get copied (there were a lot of Murakami X Louis Vuitton's copies when the products for that collaboration were released for the first time...) and the market will soon be flooded with cheap imitations of your own artwork. Which means you as an artist may have to spend more money to protect your work/sue copyists and so on. In this case Koons is copying/quoting somebody else, so whoever remakes the bags will produce a copy of a copy, and Koons won't have to worry about somebody infringing his copyright and having to drag them to court, which means he will also save quite a bit of money.
At the same time the Koons X Louis Vuitton collaboration (apparently, it will be a long-running one with more stuff to be released later on) may represent an interesting glimpse into a depressing future.
With cuts to culture funds and budgets all over the world, art will suffer and, who knows, it may even end up becoming the playground of very few (ignorant yet incredibly) rich people.
Certainly the Koons X Vuitton collection perfectly represents the vapid times we are living in, these pieces are indeed extremely expensive tokens for people who may have never stepped in a museum (or if they have done so, they used paintings as colourful backgrounds for their selfies, that's why Koons added the surname of the painter on the bags...).
The collection will be available in selected Louis Vuitton stores on April 28, on time for the wealthy and vapid ones going to the Venice Biennale to show them off. In fact we should maybe launch a new sport - taking pictures of the pretentious people sporting the Koons X Vuitton accessories at the Venice Art Biennale.
It is sad to think that a fraction of what they pay for these collaboration would be enough to establish a few university grants to allow young people to study art and other creative disciplines. Yet there is a lot to laugh about this story: just watch this Jeff Koons video in which he tries to sell us the bags. According to him, these bags are art and somebody wearing them is "celebrating humanity", a rather controversial concept considering that, by splashing $4,000 on a handbag, you may just be celebrating your own self rather than the vast majority of human beings out there.
PS For the perverse logic of the fashion industry (and based on the principle "If so-and-so has done it, I must do it as well...), now it's the turn of another powerful foundation/fashion house (Prada?) to launch something designed with an artist. Bets are open. Who's gonna be the next one?
We are used to see all sorts of professional figures acting as "curators" (definitely one of the most abused terms in our modern vocabulary...) for assorted art events, but maybe not so many choreographers. Sotheby's changed this trend by opting for a radical figure to bring an innovative twist to its Contemporary Curated auctions - Michael Clark. The dancer and choreographer selected a series of works for the auction that took place today in London.
Since founding his own company in 1984 after his experiences at the Rambert Dance Company in 1979, Clark performed at venues all over the world, including galleries and museums.
Influenced by music, art and fashion, his performances are famous for being technically and physically challenging pieces usually performed on visually stimulating bold graphic sets.
Quite often in his performances, Clark combined art and dance: throughout the years he has collaborated with artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers and performers, among them Leigh Bowery, Peter Doig, and Alexander McQueen.
In 2001 he teamed up with Sarah Lucas in "Before and After: The Fall": for this performance Lucas created a mobile structure in the shape of an arm that interacted with the dancers on stage (in the past, Clark also worked for Lucas as assistant).
Between 2010 and 2011 Clark spent seven weeks in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern during his Yvonne Rainer-inspired residency, inviting members of the public to participate in his choreography; in 2012 he did a four-week takeover of an entire floor of the Whitney Biennial in New York.
Considering therefoe art as linked to dance Clark selected the pieces following his own personal criteria: power of the composition, dynamism, density, weight and abstraction were some of the parameters Clark followed to choose the pieces that went on auction.
His choices often reflected a heightened sense of physicality (see Sarah Lucas' "Ones Knob", an object made out of beer cans with cigarettes stuck to them) or proved visually strong (Tom Wesselmann's abstract drawing "Study for Sunset Nude").
"I relate Liam Gillick's work to that of Günther Förg, in terms of density," Clark stated on Sotheby's site. "Förg is pure abstraction if you like, and because he is using text, Liam's work has a different specificity to it. I have chosen these works because they intrigue me. I've chosen Rebecca Warren, for example, because she is a friend – but I'm also intrigued by her very specific way of creating mystery."
There were 155 pieces in the Sotheby's auction, among them paintings, sculptures, mixed media works, drawings, sketches and photographs by both established and emerging artists.
Clark seems to have chosen pieces with the mind of an art dealer, since he also picked currently trendy artists such as Alighiero Boetti (the auction featured one of his colourful embroidered piece "Cinque X Cinque E Venticinque") Chun Kwang-Young (famous for his mesmerising three-dimensional aggregations of materials) and Oscar Murillo. The latter's "Untitled (Drawing Off The Wall)" painting was among the highest-valued items: estimated to sell for between 120,000-180,000 GBP it went for 143,750 GBP.
It looks like this tradition of picking unusual auction curators will go on at Sotheby's: for future versions of "Contemporary Curated" the auction house is indeed considering having as special guests figures linked to the music industry, as well as models and fashion editors.
In the last few years "democratisation" has become one of the most abused words in the creative industries, in particular in fashion. It obviously resurfaced last week during Milan Design Week, in projects, showcases and products that wondered how to "democratise" design.
The verb was used also during the Design Pride, a project by design brand Seletti, non-profit association Wunderkammer and online lifestyle retailer Yoox.
A parade to celebrate - as you may have already guessed - design, the event also marked the launch of a webpage, designpride.org, advertised as an opportunity for young creatives to showcase their products.
Students from design schools and universities and designers from all over the world were invited for the Design Pride to present their projects made with a traditional artisanal technique of their country of origin and then carried them on their back inside transparent "capsules", metaphorical treasure chests containing their ideas.
A reproduction of his L.O.V.E. Sculpture – a middle finger proudly rising in the air (Seletti launched a while back smaller objects such as a snow globe and a music box inspired by the L.O.V.E. sculpture) – was carried on top of a Mini (further vehicles were sponsored by Gufram, Havaianas, and other brands).
Despite its links with commercial partners, the Design Pride seemed to have some good intents, yet for the time being it remains a good idea (and a colourful and fun event - with an edge of fakeness in the carefully printed slogans on cool signs...).
Yoox announced in a press release that the best projects that will be featured on designpride.org (the site is supposed to become a platform to support creativity) will be given the opportunity to be distributed worldwide. Hopefully, rather than focusing on organising temporary parades (the Design Pride parade will be replicated in other countries all over the world) imitating more important pride events revolving around human and gender rights, companies with enough resources will look at ways to invest in new products designed by young creative minds in collaboration with artisans. Now, that would really make some of us "design proud" and genuinely raise one finger against a fake democratisation of culture.
