Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Saturday Inspiration: Kitsch Souvenirs in a Glass Bottle

It is undeniable that kitsch objects can be utterly fascinating, they do play indeed with two distinctive and divergent forces - attraction and rejection, beauty and ugliness - dichotomies that have become the main inspirations for a few contemporary fashion designers as well, from Miuccia Prada to Alessandro Michele at Gucci.

Among the supreme kitsch objects extraordinaire there are definitely sea shell figurines, at times representing ladies or animals. But if you abhor kitsch and still want to have a quirky sea souvenir, you can maybe collected a bit of sand from a beach (always check out the local regulations first as, in some cases, it may be illegal to do so...) and store it in your favourite vessel or maybe collect shells and store them in glass bottles.

The results may not look as kitsch as the classic sea shell figurines, but this display at the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima, Italy, proves that you can reach a safe degree of "kitschness" (in this case the various shapes of the bottles, their colourful caps decorated with Murano glass fruit and the fact that some of the bottle sample come from chemist's shops as proved by their labels, contribute to create a colourful chaos...) without falling into the realm of complete bad taste.

Those Are Pearls That Were Her Eyes: Shell Inspirations, From Hats to Dresses

A few months ago it was revealed that the late photographer and New York Times collaborator Bill Cunningham left behind an unexpected memoir - Fashion Climbing - discovered after his death in 2016.

The book will be out in September on Penguin, but in the meantime a piece came out about him on the New York Times that focused on his work as a milliner.

Born in March 1929, William J. Cunningham moved to New York in the late '40s where he first worked in advertising. He then moved onto millinery and started making whimsical hats under the name "William J" (to avoid embarrassment to his conservative Bostonian family…).

After returning to New York from serving in the Korean War, he started writing for The Chicago Tribune, shooting fashion reportages for Details magazine and contributing to Women's Wear Daily.

He stopped making hats in 1962, but a chance photograph of Greta Garbo published in a group of pictures in the New York Times in December 1978 spawned a regular column - "On the Street" - in which he documented the attires of people in the streets (spotted while cycling around clad in his blue workman's jacket and khaki pants) and another column about society parties - "Evening Hours". The rest is history and it is chronicled also in the documentary "Bill Cunningham New York" (2010) directed by Richard Press. 

The soon-to-be-released memoir may reveal more about Cunningham's life as a milliner: apparently he loved to design over the top hats (some of them are lost, others are part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection) and a few are on display in the current Bill Cunningham exhibition at the New-York Historical Society.

The recent piece in the New York Times about Bill Cunningham features a few images of his beach hats inspired by the sea: one is shaped like an octopus, another like a fish and a third one reproduces the spiralling shape of a conic shell (the feature points out that Cunningham created more novelty head pieces shaped like vegetables and fruit...). One of the most bizarre headdresses featured in the images illustrating the New York Times article is a super size straw hat in a shape reminiscent of a fluted giant clam or Tridacna squamosa, a bivalve mollusc characterised by leaf-like fluted edges on its shell, scaly projections called "scutes". 

The effect is surreal, but also a bit cartoonish: the model wearing the clamshell hat looks indeed as if she had been swallowed by the giant piece, though maybe the designer wanted to get a different impression and was probably hinting at the woman's head being like a precious pearl. 

The hat seemed to have more or less the same dimensions of a giant clam of the genus Tridacna like the ones on display at the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima (the biggest one in these images is almost one century old and weighs around 200 Kg). 

Tridacna shells can be of great inspiration for their waving forms and layered texture and in modern fashion there have been two dresses vaguely calling to mind clams that were actually inspired by other types of shells.

In 1988 John Galliano came up with a strapless gown that reproduced the sculptural qualities of scallop shells in its circular petal skirt composed of concentric rows of overlapping bands of bias-cut organdie. 

The second example is Alexander McQueen's "oyster dress" from his "Transitions" collection (Spring/Summer 2003): in this case the designer opted for a darker inspiration - disaster at sea - a theme evoked by the sand-colored organza of the dress with its disheveled top and mille-feuille-like frayed skirt, reproducing the wavy lip of a giant mollusc. McQueen conceived the dress in a symbolic way: it was indeed a deconstructing oyster that preserved a beautiful pearl - the survivor of violent waves or maybe the drowned victim of a terrible sea storm.

Natural Archeodyes: The Many Shades of Murex Sea Snails

As seen in yesterday's post, the past can teach us great techniques, but can also reintroduce us to the history of certain materials that we take for granted in our times, let's think for example about dyes.

Most of the dyes employed in the modern fashion industry are the results of industrial and synthetic processes and they are therefore the cause of terrible pollution, but in ancient times dyes were derived from natural sources. As highlighted in a display at the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima, Italy, Tyrian purple came for example from the Bolinus brandaris, more simply known as the "purple dye murex" or the "spiny dye-murex".

This edible sea snail characterised by a sculpted shell comes from the family Muricidae, murex snails or rock snails. These snails produce in the mucus of their hypobranchial glands a milky secretion without colour when fresh (used by the mollusc to sedate preys or to defend itself when attacked by predators), that turns into a lasting dye when exposed to the air. In ancient times the mollusc species was used to produce Tyrian purple, a reddish-purple natural dye (one of the dye's main chemical ingredients is dibromo-indigotin).

Sea snails of the species Hexaplex trunculus were also used to produce a purple-blue or indigo dye. These dyes were used by Ancient cultures: the Cretans knew how to make it, while the Phoenicians credited the invention of Tyrian purple to mythological hero Melkart. The Minoans and the Greeks also created dyes from the murex snails.

As you may guess, extracting the dye was a laborious and time-consuming activity that involved tens of thousands of snails (ten to twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris produced around 1gr of dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment...), the dye was therefore highly valued and expensive, but at the same time it was very fashionable since it did not fade easily but became brighter with weathering and sunlight.

The reddish colour of Roman togas like the ones donned by emperors, magistrates or generals derived from Tyrian purple. The toga picta in Tyrian purple and gold was worn by the Roman emperors, and the colour also entered the language - the phrase "donning the purple" meant indeed "becoming emperor" (as the centuries passed the connection continued - in the 9th century the child of an emperor was described as "porphyrogenitos", that is "born in the purple").

Prized by Romans, it became a sign of royal and religious power. It was also popular in Byzantine times as proved by the depictions of Emperor Justinian I and his wife Empress Theodora, clad in Tyrian purple, in the mosaics at the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (the Byzantine court stopped using Murex purple after the sack of Constantinople in 1204).

One of the most interesting points about the shells was that the results of purple dyeing were never the same as the colour depended on sunlight exposure, on the amount of snail glands used, on the freshness of the molluscs and the species, which meant the purple dye mollusc could provide a wide variety of shades going from reddish to violet and blue.

Yet the dye had its disadvantages: the smell of the molluscs was so bad that it stayed with the dyers and the Talmud granted women the right to divorce an husband who became a dyer after marrying as the smell of his hands would have been extremely disagreeable.

It would be expensive and unnecessary to recreate this dye in our times, but the story of the purple dye is intriguing, in the same way as the structure and texture of the Murex seashell egg casings is fascinating. The female shells add their egg capsules to a communal mass, creating egg masses that can be dozens of times larger than an individual murex snail. These clusters of eggs have a sort of sponge-like structure that is soft to the touch and can be easily squeezed when found in the sea or on the beach. When you dry them they become brittle and fragile and tend to keep on expelling the sand lodged in the egg casings. If you've been careful and wise while washing them, though, they won't be too smelly, and you will be able to keep the casings for study reasons and avoid at the same time to stink like an early murex dyer. 

Ancient Jewellery-Making Techniques for Modern Challenges: Cuttlebone Casting

The hard and layered internal shell of Sepia officinalis, simply known as cuttlebone, is commonly used as food for small pets such as birds and reptiles. Yet, one of the most fascinating uses for cuttlebone was linked with fashion, since the internal shell of squids was traditionally employed for jewellery making.

Composed of a chalk-like material known as aragonite (calcium carbonate), cuttlebone has a microscopic structure consisting of narrow layers connected by numerous upright pillars. Its composition and structure allows it to be easily carved and withstand high temperatures at the same time, that's why it is ideal for metal castings.

As highlighted in this display from the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima, this system - mainly used in the jewellery industry until the mid-'50s - is still employed by jewellery masters in Valenza, Italy, especially for one-piece jewels and men's rings.

The cuttlebone is usually prepared by cutting it in half with a saw (the length and thickness of the bone establish the size of the casting) and rubbing the two sides together until they fit flush against one another (sanding them can be useful to make sure the surfaces become flat).

A design is then carved into the cuttlebone with a blade and a funnel-shaped sprue with a channel is added together with air vents. Melted metal is poured into the mould via the sprue; the mould burns when the melted metal is poured in, producing carbon that keeps the metal clean from oxides. 

When the process is finished the mould is open and the casting is removed with tweezers and left in a water bath. The sprue is then sawed off and the finished piece is polished. In the very final stage gems or precious stones can be added (though in this case, before pouring the melted metal, small wood cylinders will have to be inserted where the gems are supposed to be mounted).

As stated above, this technique is still employed by some artisans and it would be intriguing to see if younger generations of jewellery designers would be interested in coming up with small collections made with this system. Anybody up for the cuttlebone casting challenge? 

Air à la Mode: Battling the Heatwave with Historical Fans

Cooling oneself in heatwaves like the ones many European countries have been experiencing this summer may be a rather difficult - if not impossible - task.

Most of us turn to air conditioning, but the less polluting and most stylish way to refresh oneself in these cases is definitely a handheld fan.

It is obviously possible to create rudimentary ones with a piece of cardboard or an old magazine, but it is a great joy to be able to see early examples of fans made with feathers, fabric or paper mounted on wood, bamboo, mica, tortoiseshell, ivory, bone or mother-of-pearl slats.

Hand fans were already popular in classical times - Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans already used fans. In Christian Europe they were instead mainly employed as liturgical objects in religious ceremonies.

According to the history of fans Chinese emperors already had circular fans and  they were made from peacock feathers or woven reeds, while ordinary Chinese people made their fans out of goose feathers. 

Invented in Japan between the 6th to 9th centuries (the earliest known folding fan comes from Nara City, Japan, from 747 AD) and made by tying thin stripes of hinoki (Japanese cypress) together with thread fastened at one end with a metal rivet, foldable fans were imported by traders from Asia to Europe.  

Around the 17th century fans became more elaborate and they were often decorated with feathers or enriched with silver, gold and precious stones, while rigid fans also became popular.

In some museums it is also possible to admire fans made entirely of decorated sticks without a fan leaf – they are known as "brisé" fans.  

All types of fans indicated high status and were mainly used by wealthy people but, by the 1700s, rigid fans had gone out of fashion and folding fans had become the norm.

Most of them displayed painted leaves with religious subjects or scenes borrowed from classical legends and myths or allegories from the Old Testament; sticks were also inlaid with gold or silver pique work.

As the decades passed, fan makers refined their skills and, in the 18th century, fans became mini artworks, made of silk or parchment and decorated and painted by European artists and craftsmen.

Fans also continued to be imported from the Far East by the East India Companies of Holland, France and England in particular.

In the 19th century fans decoration and sizes started varying: folding fans became part of a woman's attire as they could be easily carried around, while rigid fans were mainly used for decorative purposes in the house (at times they also protected a woman's face from the heat of the fire, making sure the wax-based make up remained protected and did not melt).

The themes decorating the leaves shifted in the meantime onto contemporary subjects and pastimes. Paris boasted fan making maisons producing luxury pieces and the fashionable painters who decorated these scenes often signed their work as well (also the tabletiers who carved the sticks and guards left their names on the fans). 

While there were couture fans, it was also possible to buy more affordable pieces with a printed leaf that was cheaper to produce.

The 20th century introduced Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles and, from functional cooling devices, fans became also decoratively seductive elements (think about the ostrich plumed fans employed by the performers at the Moulin Rouge to cover their bodies...).

Around this time fans advertising a wide range of products became also popular (you can still spot examples at antiquarian fairs and shops or on e-commerce retailers like eBay). 

In the following century fans continued to be made, but by then they had lost their popularity as fashion objects retaining their practical functionality.

As seen in this brief history of fans, these accessories were associated with courts, the nobility and social activities, they were symbols of high status, but were also used in the military as a way of sending signals on the field of battle (in Japan they were also used by warriors as a form of weapon, by actors and dancers for performances, and by children as a toys).

Fans also appear in many different paintings: Carpaccio often painted fans in detail in his works, most of them made with Point d'Espagne gold and silver lace, while the engravings of Abraham Bosse showed fans wielded by men, representations that remind us that fans were used not just by ladies, but also by the judges in courts when the air became too hot. 

All the fans in the pictures illustrating this post are preserved at the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima that features an entire section dedicated to this fashionable accessory.

Some of them are lavish fans made with ostrich or marabou feathers from the Belle Époque period; others feature delicate paintings dating from around the 1880s or ornate bobbin lace leaves from Bruxelles. 

It is worth remembering that the earliest known fan-leaf entirely of lace was made in Flanders in the early half of the 17th century for the Duke Brabant; before that time, lace-trimmed fans (as shown by some of the fans in the Museum of Malacology display cases) were made with a silk taffeta or parchment leaf on which lace was sewn. 

If you don't like lace, there are plenty of fans with paper leaves with lithographed courting scenes or, for something more glamorous, you could go for the fans with star-shaped sequins scattered on the leaves. 

In the museum collection there are grand styles that were probably donned at lavish balls or more subtle and refined pieces that were probably employed for elegant evenings at the theatre or at a concert.

Most fans are characterised by finely pierced and carved mother-of-pearl sticks, but there are two brisé fans from the early and the late 1800s entirely made with mother-of-pearl. One of them belonged to an Italian noble family and features a golden monogram on the guard stick and a marcasite rivet.

Unfortunately, you can't really battle the heatwave with historical fans as they are too fragile to be used for such a fight, but nobody stops us from dreaming of doing so while using an ordinary or a homemade fan to cool ourselves and fantasise of being transported away from the sweltering heat and time travelling to a grand ball in the 1800s. 

The Shape of Shells

When we analysed John Pickering's structures, we highlighted that his models were the result of mathematical calculations and a lot of patience as the artist didn't use any digital means to make his original pieces. Yet, while his structures are very intriguing, they aren't the only ones in which intricate and complex geometries were formed without using computational technologies.

Nature is indeed one of the best creator of surprising shapes and silhouettes and that's the reason why many architects and fashion designers are constantly fascinated by the possibilities of biomimicry.

As seen in a previous post, the spiral shape is almost ubiquitous in shelled animals such as the Nautilus pompilius, that inspired different architectural constructions, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The chambered seashell of the Nautilus has interested many mathematicians and scientists who have been trying to analyse its shape, wondering if the growth of its spiral obeys a pattern governed by the Golden Ratio.

Yet, when constructed from a Golden Rectangle, it becomes clearer that the Golden Spiral is not a Nautilus spiral, but it must be remembered that there is more than one way to construct a spiral with golden ratio proportions - the shell of the Nautilus shows indeed golden ratio spiral rotation at phi squared.

There are more spiralling curves to discover in shells (one of the richest institutions dedicated to shells is the Museum of Malacology in Cupra Marittima, Italy), all of them fascinating and graceful, including the ones that characterise the Lithopoma caelatum (or carved star shell), the Mikadotrochus gotoi and the Entemnotrochus rumphii (both marine gastropod mollusks from family of the Pleurotomariidae or slit snails).

The Astraea heliotropium or sunburst star turban is also fascinating for its dome-shaped spire and curved vaulted spines, while the Guildfordia yoka (both come from the family Turbinidae, or turban snails) looks more fragile with its radiating ribs. 

The Angaria delphinus (from the family of the Angariidae) is instead protected by spine elements that help the mollusks not to fall into the sand. The spines, that are also slightly bent and follow the shape and silhouette of the shell, also have a defensive function.

One of the most interesting ways to study the structure of shells remains sectioning them longitudinally, to discover their internal configuration that usually reveals fascinating chambers and spaces as proved by these samples of Vasum turbinellus, Tibia curta, Tectus sp., Tutufa bubo and Chicoreus ramosus.

The Complex Geometries of John Pickering, Pioneer of Digital Constructions

In yesterday's post we looked at a research group experimenting with modern techniques and technologies to create architecturally innovative buildings. Yet, in the history of architecture and design, there have been bright creative minds who came up with intricate shapes and forms for extraordinarily modern buildings without using computational technologies, among them there is the late artist John Pickering.

Born in Wolverhampton in 1934 and trained in classical sculpture and life drawing at Bilston and Birmingham Schools of Art, Pickering first worked as a stone carver and in a wood pattern-making factory.

Around the '70s, fascinated with mathematics and geometry, he began experimenting with what is commonly considered an obscure branch of geometry, the "inversion principle" (MP.MQ=MR2), a projective transformation that, through its infinite generation of spatial changes and sensual curves, allowed Pickering to create sculptures of imaginative structures that wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of a sci-fi film.

Pickering would first fix vertical and horizontal planes and then, by triangulation and projection, he would calculate other key points in space. After completing these inversion points and their relative distances, he would make a rudimentary model of his structure; rotation of this model in space unlocked for Pickering other design possibilities.

In his works, inspired among the others by by Naum Gabo, texts such as Geometry and the Imagination by D. Hilbert and S. Cohn-Vossen, French Gothic cathedrals, satellites, spacecrafts and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pickering conjugated a numerical sequence and cast its form in space.

Abstract forms and geometries transformed into physical volumes for powerful structures that, based on mathematical rigour, called at times to mind space probes or were vaguely reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's machines.  

Nowadays we mainly work with computer modelling software, but Pickering's models were the results of calculations, transformed into three-dimensional objects and made with paper, cardboard and plaster: this was a long process, but in Pickering's case it became even more time-consuming as the artist suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that didn't allow him to work fast.

Pickering worked in isolation for many years and, in 2002, he had his first exhibition at the Royal Society of British Sculptors in London. Several exhibitions followed and the publication of a book Mathematical Form: John Pickering and the Architecture of the Inversion Principle by the Architectural Association in 2006.

In 2002 he started a collaboration with architect George Legendre revolving around the possibility of producing a large-scale computer generated piece.

George Legendre's architectural practice - IJP Corporation, specialised in the natural intersections of space, mathematics and computation - employed the artist's original extensive calculations to recreate "Inversion of Cylinder with Sphere"  and "Inversion of Intersecting Spheres" (the technicalities behind the latter can be discovered in this report Download JohnPickering). 

Besides, in 2007, a collaboration started between Pickering and the Special Modelling Group at Fosters and Partners at Riverside Three, Battersea, London. Pickering chose various sections of his elaborate mathematics of inversion to be entered into the computer and thus, via a 3D printer at Fosters, twelve small models were generated. The models were then colour coded to illustrate the origin of the inversion.

Pickering liked to imagine Stockhausen's music being performed inside one of his structures made on a grand scale, a dream that may become true one day as one of the models by Legendre's architectural studio is awaiting funds for full-scale implementation, but, in the meantime, the John Pickering Foundation is preserving and storing his works.

Now, the more you look at them, the more you realise they could become the basis for jewellery pieces or for prints on garments, while his inversion studies could prove interesting for fashion designers who are into tailoring and pattern cutting. In a nutshell, surely the time has come to see Pickering's studies of the principle of inversions on spheres, cylinders, cones or cross-caps being applied to another creative field like fashion. Yes, you're right, it would be demanding, but at the same time it would be a terrifically engaging challenge. 

Tectonism & Semiotics: Zaha Hadid Computation and Design Research Group (ZHCODE) @ The Digital Turn, London

There is a lot of talk about coding, but, for those among us who are not into computational thinking, this discipline remains an abstract concept. The "Digital Turn" exhibition currently on at The Building Centre, London (Store Street; until 14th September) invites instead visitors to consider how new technologies can be applied to our cities and generate innovative ways to build and design structures.   

The event brings together architects, engineers, planners, advanced manufacturing teams, contractors and academics.

Among the others there's also Zaha Hadid Architects that in recent years took the coding discourse further by establishing a Computation and Design Research Group (ZHCODE).

The ZHCODE group, set up by Nils Fischer, Shajay Bhooshan and Patrik Schumacher in 2007, has been using computational programming to create experimental structures, modular housing concepts and robotically assembled prototypes.

The group's display features computational designs based on research in programming, geometry and mathematics through two main themes and sections - "Tectonism", looking at how a structure is built and at geometry through its fabrication and methods of making, and "Semiotics", applying the physical design and construction aspects of the group's work to the social context in which specific designs will exist.

Projects showcased at "Digital Turn" as part of Zaha Hadid CODE's display include robotic additive manufacture and robotic hot wire cutting technology, techniques employed for the "Thallus" sculpture, originally presented in 2017 at Milan Design Week; an insight into technologies such as timber bending and robotic fiber winding; modular housing developed using algorithmic techniques to explore community development and densities, and an exploration of design thinking behind Mathematics, The Winton Gallery at the Science Museum, London (some of these projects are illustrated by videos on the Zaha Hadid Architects YouTube Channel).

The display and "The Digital Turn" event make you think: while the architecture and design industries are launching special research units, fashion is lagging behind.

Sure, there are fashion designers experimenting with new technologies and bridging the gap between science and art, and there are units inside big fashion companies trying to apply algorithms to study the habits of consumers or provide them with style tips. That said, fashion still needs to invest more in research and development, focusing on robotics, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and big data as they may help building a new industry and radically change the way we create and market collections.   

Urban Détournement: Fabio Viale, From Marble to Polystyrene, From Italy to Germany (and Back)

The concept of détournement in art hints at the possibility of hijacking something well-known to most ordinary people. Originally developed in the '50s by the Letterist International, the concept was later on adopted and adapted by the Situationist International and often employed for political pranks in later years.

One of the key points for a successful détournement is to employ something really familiar with your audience, so that people can easily read into the messages you're trying to spread.

In a way détournement can also be used as a parody in which original works are employed to create new and more subversive pieces.

Italian artist Fabio Viale mainly employs this technique for his sculptures: his work "Star Gate" may look like a futuristic architectural structure, maybe recreating a section of a spaceship, but it is actually the result of two recombined stacklable plastic boxes of the type used to carry fruit and vegetable, reproduced in gigantic size and in marble.

Viale often combines classical sculptures with modern tattoos: the statue "Laocoön and His Sons" is for example radically reinterpreted by the artist. The snakes and Laocoön's sons are removed from the scene and Laocoön's body is covered in intricate tattoos replicating Giovanni di Modena's paintings inspired by Dante's Inferno, that seem to highlight his muscular and toned body; the same fate awaits Canova's "Italic Venus", whose back is also covered in intricate floral tattoos. 

Quite often simple and ordinary objects are elevated to the realm of the extraordinary and vice versa, so that a simple drywall anchor becomes a 2-metre-tall vertical sculpture, a sort of phallic rocket, while the giant finger of the Colossus of Constantine (as seen at the Capitoline Museums in Rome) becomes a joke since it is resized and reproduced in polystyrene. 

Most of Viale's works feed off visual illusions, misperceptions, juxtapositions and contrasts, "La Suprema" represents for example traditional cheap wooden fruit crates but made of marble. 

Viale is currently having his moment since he has a solo exhibition comprising eleven large scale works at the Glyptothek Museum in Munich that extends into the Königslpatz, where his "Laocoön" welcomes visitors. Detached from the Vatican Museums where the original statue is preserved, Viale's piece is employed here to reclaim a more urban and modern space.   

At the same time his "Infinito", a black marble sculpture representing two intertwined tyres is on display at the Battistero del Duomo in Pietrasanta, Italy (6th August to 30th September 2018). 

Though the urban sculpture does not look very religious, it actually hints at wedding rings and therefore at the union of two people, at procreation and at christening, so that the baptistery ends up being the perfect place for this artwork.  

Viale has also got an exhibition divided in two spaces of the Galleria Poggiali in Pietrasanta (until 17th August): in the main gallery spaces (via Garibaldi 8) it is possible to admire "Kouros", a white marble bust covered in tattoos inspired by Russian criminal gangs (very apt for the times we're living in...), while at the Ex-Fonderia d'arte Luigi Tommasi (Via Marconi, 48) there is an exhibition comprising other assorted works by Viale.

Critics may deem Viale's works as not extremely original maybe, but the artist's passion for combining modern objects and trends such as tires and tattoos with classical pieces, may help revamping the interest of a younger generation of people (and of Instagram fans in particular...) for classical art (you wonder why Viale still hasn't collaborated with Gucci's Alessandro Michele on the sets of a catwalk show, maybe in future?).

"May You Live in Interesting Times", The Counterfeit Curse Inspiring The 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice

If we met an intriguing person and, after chatting for a long time, that person would say goodbye in a cryptic way, with a sentence such as "May You Live in Interesting Times", we would probably feel puzzled and confused. What did they mean by such a greeting and is that a good wish or a terrible curse, we would wonder.  

Many of us will get the final answer to this hypothetical question next year as "May You Live in Interesting Times" is the title and general theme of the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice (May 11th to November 24th, 2019). Announced a couple of weeks ago during a press conference at Ca’ Giustinian, this title is actually an ancient Chinese curse referring to periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil, that seems to be extremely apt for the times we're living in.  

Ralph Rugoff, the Curator of the 58th International Art Exhibition and Director of the Hayward Gallery of London since 2006, explained that the inspiration came from a speech given in the late 1930s, during which British MP Sir Austen Chamberlain invoked an ancient Chinese curse that he had learnt of from a British diplomat who had served in Asia - "May you live in interesting times." "There is no doubt that the curse has fallen on us," Chamberlain stated, "we move from one crisis to another. We suffer one disturbance and shock after another."

The impression of having been hit by a terrible curse is probably rather strong in many of us, especially when we think about our lives and the fact that we seem to be trapped in a vicious circle of personal, national and international crises. Yet Rugoff is actually ready to reassure us there was never any ancient Chinese curse, but invites us to stop and think, "At a moment when the digital dissemination of fake news and 'alternative facts' is corroding political discourse and the trust on which it depends, it is worth pausing whenever possible to reassess our terms of reference," he claims in a press release. 

Sure, the Art Biennale will definitely feature works tackling the precarious aspects of existence today, the threats to traditions, institutions and relationships, but there will also be artists who challenge existing habits of thought and artworks that will invite people to look at unquestioned categories and concepts; art that explores the interconnectedness of different phenomena and that raises questions and pieces and installations that visitors will be able to use as a guide to live in interesting times. After all, this "counterfeit curse" as Rugoff calls it, is not a proper theme, but a "general approach to making art and a view of art's social function as embracing both pleasure and critical thinking."

Last but not least, next year's Art Biennale hopes to bring an atmosphere of openness to the world: the President of La Biennale di Venezia Paolo Baratta reminded in the occasion of the 58th International Art Exhibition launch that, in July 1998, Harald Szeemann was appointed first curator of the new Biennale. Szeemann's Biennale in 1999 was titled "dAPERTutto" (APERTO overALL) - hinting at a section of the 1980 Venice Biennale, titled "Aperto" (Open; also curated by Szeemann) - a reference that will continue twenty years later in 2019 event.      

"Biennale Arte 2019 aspires to the ideal that what is most important about an exhibition is not what it puts on display, but how audiences can use their experience of the exhibition afterwards, to confront everyday realities from expanded viewpoints and with new energies," Ralph Rugoff continues. "An exhibition should open people's eyes to previously unconsidered ways of being in the world and thus change their view of that world."

Image credit for this post

Ralph Rugoff and Paolo Baratta, Photo by Andrea Avezzù, Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia