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

A Glimpse of Future in a Calle: Spazio Creativo Pierre Cardin, Venice

In yesterday's post we looked at an exhibition currently on at the Brooklyn Museum, celebrating Pierre Cardin.

The exhibition is on until January 2020, so there's plenty of time to visit it, butm, if you're around Venice and you want to get some Pierre Cardin vibes, head to the Spazio Creativo Pierre Cardin (Calle della Regina, 2331 Santa Croce).

The space is mainly a showroom and offers the chance to see only very few fashion designs (and that's a shame) while focusing on small accessories such as sunglasses and visors (in a mainly '80s style) and on interior design pieces.

So, while this is not a museum dedicated to the fashion designs created by Cardin (and that's actually a shame), it could still prove interesting for design students visiting Venice.  

To The Moon and Beyond: The Brooklyn Museum Goes Stellar with "Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion"

There's an important commemoration to celebrate today (anticipated by the previous recap on Space Age designs and inspirations) – the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. There have been many fashion designers in love with the moon and with space, but the first one was Pierre Cardin.

Throughout his collections he explored indeed the Earth, Sun and Moon as portals to infinity and in a 1984 interview with The Sunday Times, he revealed that one of his greatest moments was stepping into a spacesuit like the one that Neil Armstrong wore when he landed on the moon.

If you want to celebrate the lunar landing anniversary and discover more about Cardin's flying-saucer-like dresses, satellite hats, innovative fabrics, and about his passion for futuristic interior design pieces and for houses that looked as if they were part of the set for a sci-fi film, head to the Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition "Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion" is opening indeed today at the museum (until 5th January 2020); this is the first New York retrospective dedicated to the designer in 40 years.

Curated by Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture at the Brooklyn Museum, the event features 170 objects that date from the 1950s to the present, including haute couture and ready-to-wear garments, accessories, photographs, film, and other materials drawn primarily from the Pierre Cardin archive.

"Throughout his decades-long career, Pierre Cardin has proved to be a master tailor and designer, as well as an intuitive businessman," states Yokobosky in a press release. "He truly is a twentieth-century renaissance man whose work has advanced fashion and design while continuously giving society a new and breathtaking vision of what the future might look like."

Born in 1922 in San Biagio di Callalta, near Venice, Pietro Cardin moved to France when his family fled from Fascism. During World War II he served in the Red Cross.

He then moved to Paris, worked at Paquin and Schiaparelli's maisons and joined Dior's in 1947. Excelling in mathematics and geometry, Cardin soon showed a special skill for constructing impeccable dresses.

Three years later he founded his own fashion house and rose to fame after launching in 1953 his first collection. The latter featured architectural pieces such a pleated coat that sold very well in the United States and helped him getting noticed by fashion editors such as Carmel Snow and Diana Vreeland.

His fame quickly spread all over the world: in 1957 he went to Japan with news photographer Yoshi Takata and spent a month teaching three-dimensional cutting at Bunka Fashion College (his class included Hanae Mori and Kenzo Takada). In 1958 he launched a ready-to-wear collection at Parisian department store Printemps.

In the following years he introduced experimental shapes and was very influenced by Space Age designs and technology (see the 1964 "Cosmocorps" collection with looks that included vinyl, metallic fabrics and zippers), coming up with dresses and body suits that seemed to echo Star Trek's style, hologram dresses, bubble dresses, and kinetic tunics.

His fashion pieces (among them also unisex designs) fascinated many stars and iconic celebrities, among them Brigitte Bardot, Lauren Bacall, Alain Delon, Jacqueline Kennedy and Raquel Welch.

The designer also invented in 1968 a synthetic fabric dubbed "Cardine" made by molding a bonded, uncrushable Dynel fiber into three-dimensional patterns.

His passion remained the space and the future: in 1969, Cardin took an inspirational trip to NASA, where he became the only civilian in history to wear an original space suit worn by an astronaut.

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Cardin continued making clothes often inspired by architectural details or by the design of computers.

He also organised ground-breaking fashion shows at the Great Wall of China (1979; this show featured 300 looks) and in Moscow’s Red Square (1991; attended by over 200,000 people). In the meantime his empire kept on growing: in the late 1960s, Cardin began licensing his own name and a monster-like expansion quickly followed.

Licensing meant money from royalties and with more than 850 licenses, Cardin bought throughout the years the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs in Paris (now Espace Cardin) and Bistro Maxim's; the Palais Bulles and a castle in Lacoste, France.  At the moment the company's revenue is still coming from worldwide licenses for products ranging from furniture to fragrances, pens, bags, and even beach umbrellas.

In 2011 it was announced that Cardin wanted to sell the company, but, being quoted at €1 billion and with the designer stating he would have remained at its helm as Creative Director, no powerful fashion groups dared buying it. Today, at the age of 97 Cardin  continues to walk to his office and keeps on designing.

The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum was organised chronologically and divided in 19 section on display among bold and bright Pop Art and futuristic backdrops.

Cardin has always been ahead of his time and that's clear from the titles of the sections - "Twenty-First Century Unisex," "Kinetic," "Licensing," "Democratization and Pluralization," and "New Material and The Visible Invisible," just to mention a few of them. 

There are many iconic pieces to rediscover such as his "target dress" from his 1960s "Cosmocorps" collection, his investigations into unisex garment design and trendsetting menswear, such as the slender "cylinder" pants and a wool suit purchased by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1957 and worn three times (it was the look of choice for the Kennedys' first official visit in 1961 to Canada). Fans of futuristic inspirations will love the kinetic dresses, the illuminated clothes, the lenticular printed designs and 3-D molded tunics displayed in front of a giant picture by Terry O'Neill portraying Raquel Welch in a Pierre Cardin outfit featuring a black bodysuit, miniskirt and necklace in blue vinyl, worn with a Plexiglass visor (1970; this is also the picture on the cover of the exhibition catalogue). There are also plenty of accessories on view, including hats, jewelry, shoes, and sunglasses.

Quite a few of the designs on show feature spherical or round forms that will call to mind Pierre Cardin's Palais Bulles, designed by architect Antti Lovag for industrialist Pierre Bernard, and purchased unfinished by the fashion designer Cardin, who called it an "architectural folly".

Fans of fashion and cinema will be able to rediscover clothes made for film and theater, such as the costumes worn by Mia Farrow in "A Dandy in Aspic" (1968) and by Jeanne Moreau.

The French actress met Cardin in the '60s and they had a relationship that lasted around 5 years and she often donned some of his elegant looks in films such as "Eva" and "The Yellow Rolls-Royce". For animation fans there is also a 1963 episode of "The Jetsons" to rediscover, mentioning a Space Age evening gown by "Pierre Martian". Film clips from his famous fashion shows at Espace Pierre Cardin (1970 onward), the Great Wall of China (1979), and Moscow's Red Square (1991) are also featured. While among the highlights of the photographic section there are images of Hiroko Matsumoto, the model who became a muse to Cardin, and photographs of the "Battle of Versailles", the 1973 fashion show that turned into a symbolic duel between American and French designers.

Throughout his career Cardin designed, cut, sew and finished his own clothing, but he also focused on designing furniture, lighting, and automobile interiors.

Quite often there were connections and correspondences between his dresses and jackets and his furniture pieces, as shown in the objects included in the exhibition, while his upholstery, taillights and strip detailing for cars such as the 1972 Javelin, and the Atlantic Aviation's Westwind 1124, inspired different fashion designers throughout the decades (including Miuccia Prada in Miu Miu's Resort 18 collection).

The curator also attempted to put Cardin’s work in a larger historical context, adding footage from early films that tried to portray visions of the future, such as "A Trip to the Moon" (1903) by Georges Méliès, and "Things to Come" (1936) by William Cameron Menzies.

The final aim of the event is to show that Cardin has been a pioneer: today's fashion shows have become moveable feasts, but he was the first to show his collections in India, Japan, China, and Vietnam; he has also been the first to license his name, using it to create a wide range of products on a global scale (bear in mind that licensing his name was an operation criticised by fashion purists, but secretly admired by more commercial fashion houses that struggled to replicate his success).

Cardin also remains the most copied, but rarely acknowledged designer around: if you know Cardin's history, you will indeed spot connections between his designs and a wide range of contemporary pieces and collections by Tom Ford, Thomas Tait, Marc Jacobs, Céline, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen and Miuccia Prada.

More recently there were Cardin's echoes in Maria Grazia Chiuri's designs for Dior's Haute Couture S/S 18 collection, and in Jean-Paul Gaultier's Haute Couture S/S 18 collection (as a young man, Gaultier worked for him as a studio assistant) with one of Gaultier's futuristic designs on the runway dubbed "Cardinella".

A Pierre Cardin's retrospective was therefore due (celebrations may continue in September when the documentary "House of Cardin" directed by P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes should debut at the Venice Film Festival), but scheduling it with the moon landing anniversary was a very clever idea, so well-done to the Brooklyn Museum for organising a stellar retrospective about a man who can proudly state he has owned it all, but nobody owned him. And in the current fashion industry where fashion groups rule, fashion designers are exploited and influencers believe they are creating unique images while they are just being used by brands, that's no mean feat. 

Image credits for this post 

1. Terry O'Neill (British, born 1938). Raquel Welch in a Pierre Cardin outfit featuring a miniskirt and necklace in blue vinyl, worn with a Plexiglass visor, 1970. Image courtesy of Iconic Images. © Terry O’Neill / Iconic Images

2. Pierre Cardin wearing Apollo 11 space suit, 1969. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

3. Pierre Cardin two-tone jersey dresses, with vinyl waders, 1969. (Photo: Yoshi Takata. © Pierre Pelegry)

4. Pierre Cardin "Cardine" dress, 1968. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

5. Pierre Cardin minidresses with sculpted bust detail, 1966. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

6. Pierre Cardin in his couture salon, 1952. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

7. Pierre Cardin in his atelier, 1957. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

8. Pierre Cardin wool dress with cutouts, 1971. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

9. Pierre Cardin "Cosmocorps" suits and "Porthole" dresses, 1968. (Photo: Yoshi Takata. Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

10. Pierre Cardin vinyl eyewear, 1970. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

11. Lauren Bacall, Leslie Bogart, and Alain Delon at Pierre Cardin's Fall 1968 fashion show. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

12. Pierre Cardin at work, 1968. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

13. Pierre Cardin developing his "Computer" coat, 1980. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

14. Pierre Cardin dress with kinetic back, 1970. (Photo: Yoshi Takata. Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

15. Gloves around the Pierre Cardin "Escargot" logo, mid-1960s. (Photo: Yoshi Takata. Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

16. Pierre Cardin at the St. James Theatre, 1977. (Photo: Ivan Farkas. Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

17. Pierre Cardin "Computer" coats, 1980. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

18. Pierre Cardin “Pagoda” jackets in leather, 1979. (Photo: Courtesy of Archives Pierre Cardin. © Archives Pierre Cardin)

19-28. Installation images, "Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion", Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.  

Lunar Fashion and Space Inspirations Recap

This week the news mainly focused on one event, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, the United States' Apollo 11 was indeed the first crewed mission to land on the Moon on 20 July 1969. We celebrated already the 40th anniversary of this special event and extensively published pieces about space fashion in the last ten years.

So, if you want to prepare to tomorrow's anniversary in style, you can go back to previous post and rediscover our notes on cosmic fashion and supermodern wardrobes, plus fashion tributes to the late Neil Armstrong and collections modelled by astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin; or you can check out alien, astronaut and robotic inspirations in ready-to-wear and haute couture; dynamic rocket-shaped garments and flat-packed shoes to wear indoor in space; the possibilities that water-cooled garments, spacesuits and prototypes of spacesuits may offer to fashion designers; innovative and experimental textiles, futuristic architectures in fashion accessories and how specific sci-fi films inspired photo shoots, collections, shapes and silhouettes.

And don't forget Space Age designers and designs from museum archives, women on the moon, sweet voyages to the moon and DIY designs inspired by space missions. Yes there's a lot to read and rediscover through all these previous posts, but sit back, relax and get ready for a fashionable trip to the moon!

From Séances to Spider Webs: "More-than-humans" by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tomás Saraceno @ Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

As a follow up to Tuesday's post, let's continue to take a note of the exhibitions opening this fall that may be inspiring for creative minds. The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in collaboration with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) is launching in September a conceptual joint exhibition of works by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tomás Saraceno.

Curated by Stefanie Hessler "Más-que-humanas" (More-than-humans; 25th September - 1st December 2019, the Moneo Temporary Exhibition Hall, on the ground floor of the museum) will tackle a series of contemporary questions about technologies, artificial intelligence, the minds of animals, and the power and attraction of the unknown.

It will feature "Opera (QM.15)" (2016) by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, a holographic work in which the artist appears as the soprano Maria Callas. In an elegant dress and dramatic make-up this vision performs arias from Luigi Cherubini's "Medea", Amilcare Ponchielli's "La Gioconda" and Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata".

This is part of a wider body of works in which Gonzalez-Foerster performs as legendary figures, such as Marilyn Monroe and Sarah Bernhardt, that look like ghostly apparitions. The artist transforms into these figures analysing in this way the tragedy and mystery that surrounded their lives.

In these performances she is inspired by the history of photography, early cinema and an interest in the uncanny, Gonzalez-Foerster interprets indeed each session as "a séance" or "spiritual session", so the "more-than-humans" theme is applied to the possibility of going beyond life and explore a realm inhabited by ghostly visions. 

Readers of this site are familiar with the works of Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno and in particular with his inflatable and floating aerosolar sculptures and his researches on spider webs. Saraceno's installations usually combine art and science, as proved also by the installations that will be on display at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Over more than a decade Saraceno put together an interdisciplinary network exploring scientific, philosophical, cultural and artistic connections between humans and spiders/webs. He reunited all these studies and experimental practices on the Arachnophilia platform and he will take to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza some of his spider webs. 

Inspired and mesmerised by these complex yet incredibly fragile structures, Saraceno is also obsessed with the possibilities they can offer to artists willing to explore their world.

So, while at the current Venice Biennale Saraceno looked at divination (a theme that connects his work to Gonzalez-Foerster's spiritual sessions) in conjunction with spider webs, here he will look at the possibility of using spider webs as musical instruments.

Saraceno will amplify the vibrations of spider/webs as if they were musical instruments, making them audible for human participants, creating in this way floating landscapes of sensorial and living connections that prompt visitors to become more aware of the unheard and unnoticed voices that surround us. 

In Saraceno's practice spider webs also represent data about forms of sociality, construction, and communication that could prove essential for imagining new ways for humans to inhabit the world and that's where his installations tie in with the "more than humans" theme.   

The exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza will also feature a rich public programme with activities and conferences and even a workshop by the Tomás Saraceno Studio focusing on arachnophobia and arachnophilia. 

Image credits for this post

1 - 2. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, OPERA (QM.15), 2016, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, Photo: Andrea Rossetti, 2016.

3 - 4. Tomás Saraceno, How to entangle the universe in a spider web?, 2018. Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Photo: Courtesy the artist | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

5. Solitary semi-social mapping of Ceginus by a duet of Nephila senegalensis, four weeks and a triplet of Cyrtophora citricola, three weeks, 2018
Photo: Courtesy the artist | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

6. Solitary semi-social mapping of HS 1700+6416 by a solo Nephila senegalensis - one week and a solo Cyrtophora citricola, three weeks, 2016
Photo: Courtesy the artist | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

A Brief Compendium of African Botany in Fabrics

There is a lot of talk about the computer-animated remake of Disney's "The Lion King", directed by Jon Favreau. The film, released this week, is currently being praised for its visual effects and for its score that also features Beyoncé's song "Spirit" as the lead single from the soundtrack. 

But if you are into fashion, want to pay homage to Africa and in particular to its plants, you should check out the latest collection of designs by Vlisco.

The Dutch wax company dating back to 1846 recently launched a series of fabrics that could be considered as a brief compendium of African botany with prints inspired by different plants, leaves and fruits.

You can choose between star-shaped sections of sliced okra composed into a playful pattern, prints of a thriving kola plant (the kola nut is the linchpin of many Igbo ceremonies), boughs of a cashew tree in season with ripe cashew apple fruits and cashew seeds ready for picking, and there's also a Lagos spinach plant in full bloom. 

The fabrics are available in different bright colours, going from earthy tones of browns, red, orange and green to bright fuchsia, yellow and aqua green.

On the Vlisco site there are suggestions on how to use these fabrics: one of the most original way is definitely to cut out the motifs decorating them and employing them to create three-dimensional elements as shown by the mermaid gown on Vlisco's site. The dress features voluminous sleeves made with multi-coloured fabric leaves.

Another original way to employ these colourful fabrics is creating a pattern for the dress following the shape of the prints: the star-shaped okra slices inspired for example an airy ruffle dress with an off-shoulder neckline. In a nutshell, no, you don't have to be a botanist to be inspired by these prints, but you must let the prints and plants inspire you in a natural and spontaneous way. 

Unravelling Exciting Threads: Belgium Is Design's "Textiles Revealed" @ New York Textile Month

It may still be July, but it is never too early to start making a list of interesting events to see this Autumn. Belgium Is Design, the organisation reuniting the regional Belgian institutions Flanders DC (formerly Design Flanders), MAD Brussels and Wallonie-Bruxelles Design Mode (WBDM), is launching for example a showcase in collaboration with New York Textile Month. 

The latter is a multiple-location event curated by Lidewij Edelkoort, trend forecaster and Dean of Hybrid Studies at The New School, and Philip Fimmano, that brings together museums, galleries, showrooms, retailers, design studios and students.   

"Textiles Revealed" (C/O Unix Gallery, 513 West 26th Street, New York; 26th September - 3rd October 2019), will introduce to the New York audience 11 contemporary Belgian textile designers.

The display will look at material knowledge, research, innovation, technology and production methods through installations and sustainable furniture, wallhangings and textural rugs.

There will be the proverbial something for everybody: for example, fans of minimalism will find pieces by Alice Leens, a designer with an experimental approach to textiles. The thread is the main inspiration and foundation of her work and through it she invites viewers to (re)discover the beauty and the infinite possibilities this humble element can create. 

Flavien Servaes and Ani Bedrossian create research-driven textiles with surprising twists about them: one of their pieces looks like a wallhanging or tapestry, but it opens up to reveal a secret passage, turning the tapestry into an architectural element rather than just an interior design piece.

Radical and innovative, Anne Masson and Eric Chevalier have collaborated since 2006, often working with architects, designers, choreographers and fashion designers.

Their exploration of textiles looks at the possibility of transforming what is considered waste into a refined design product. Five years ago they founded the project Laend together with the designer Diane Steverlynck, and as a trio they explore how a rhythm or a chromatic sequence in the thread produces repercussions in the designs and motifs of the fabric that they compose.

Dividing his time between Brussels, Zurich, Paris and Stockholm, textile designer and artist Christoph Hefti works in fashion textiles, print and the performing arts (he combines music, costume design, video and live art).

He designs and develops his series of hand-knotted rugs in Nepal, where he studied traditional crafts in a contemporary key and where he takes inspirations for his works, often moving from the mystical and spiritual tradition of storytelling textiles.

Luc Druez's project DeCluuz revolves around the creation of a series of female portraits, the images are created weaving technical fibers, metallic filaments and electrical and fishing wires as well.

In these large-scale tapestries the historical portraits of ladies emerge in a mysterious way: the women look like ghosts, the materials employed for the portraits create indeed diaphanous, delicate and translucent effects, and, while the visual impact is intriguing, the pieces could also be used as a social commentary, as the image fading away could be referred to all the women who have been written out of history (hopefully the designer will take this aspect forward in another series of portraits).

For ten years Geneviève Levivier has created textiles for leading fashion houses such as Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Balenciaga.

The artist and designer is now focused on creating contemporary tapestries characterised by innovative surface effects that play with lights and shadows and that she creates with unusual materials including eggshells (collected from a local bakery), flowers, fibres from recycled jeans, tulle and eco-friendly polymers. 

The craftsmanship and technology dichotomy influences the work of the KRJST duo (Justine de Moriamé and Erika Schillebeeckx).

Their tapestries are dense with details and scenes in which contemporary, social and environmental themes are explored in intricate and complex abstract visions.

A few of the pieces that will be on display in New York are made at the TextielLab of the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, so there will be plenty of new techniques to discover for textile experts. 

"The exhibition upends preconceived notions of traditional Belgian textiles – often limited to the country's centuries-old linen heritage – instead unraveling an exciting thread among designers from the region. Tufting, felting, digital jacquards and coiling are just some of the techniques employed by a new generation redefining the boundaries of textile creativity," Edelkoort states in a press release about the event.   

This will be the first showcase by Belgium Is Design entirely dedicated to textiles, proving there is a great interest in this medium not just in Europe, but also in other continents. 

Image credits for this post

1. Alice Leens
Untitled, 2015
100% cotton
ø 83 cm
Private collection

2, 3. BedrossianServaes
A traverser, 2016
100% wool
280 x 240 cm

4. Chevalier Masson & Diane Steverlynck, Tapa daybed, 2015
mixed fibers, steel
201 X 65 x 39 cm
Valerie Traan Gallery, Antwerpen, photo Filip Vanzieleghem

5. Chevalier Masson & Diane Steverlynck, Court circuit rugs, 2016
100% wool
80 x 190 cm, ph. D. Steverlynck

6. Christoph Hefti, Swiss Mask, 2019
Wool & Silk
168 x 115 cm
Maniera Gallery (Brussels)
Private collection
Photo: Jeroen Verrecht

7. Christoph Hefti, Insect, 2018
Wool & Silk
170 x L 230 cm
Maniera Gallery (Brussels)
Photo: Jeroen Verrecht

8. Decluuz by Luc Druez, Lady II, 2019
Lacquered copper (100% recyclable without loss of property), synthetic horse hair (biodegradable). Hand-weaving (jacquard) with polychrome weft. Patina applied manually.
135 x 175 cm

9. Decluuz by Luc Druez, Lady IV, 2019
Lacquered copper (100% recyclable without loss of property), synthetic horse hair (biodegradable). Hand-weaving (jacquard) with polychrome weft. Patina applied manually.
135 x 205 cm

10. Decluuz by Luc Druez, Lady V, 2019
Lacquered copper (100% recyclable without loss of property), synthetic horse hair (biodegradable). Hand-weaving (jacquard) with polychrome weft. Patina applied manually.
135 x 190 cm

11. Geneviève Levivier, Eggshell floral Moon shadow, 2019
65cm ø ;
Steel support : 10 cm
PLA, eggshells (collected from a local bakery), flowers, fibres from recycled jeans, tulle and eco-friendly polymers.

12. Geneviève Levivier
Eggshell floral Ephemeral, 2019
120 x 120 cm
PLA, eggshells (collected from a local bakery), flowers, fibres from recycled jeans, tulle and eco-friendly polymers

13. KRJST STUDIO, Onfire, 2018
Mohair, polymer, polyester, cotton, linen, cash wool. Jacquard weaving
180 x 180 cm

14. KRJST STUDIO, Onfire, 2018, detail
Mohair, polymer, polyester, cotton, linen, cash wool. Jacquard weaving
180 x 180 cm

15. KRJST STUDIO, gallery display, photograph by Sébastien Delahaye

16, KRJST STUDIO In Girum Nocte et consumimur igni, 2016, detail
Mohair, polymer, polyester, cotton, linen, cash wool. Jacquard weaving
160 X 170 cm
Photograph by Alexander Popelier

With Water Surrounding Me: "Into the Blue: The Origin and Revival of Pools, Swimming Baths and Lidos" @ The Victoria & Albert Museum, London

There's something irresistible about swimming pools in all sorts of seasons - it is indeed hard to resist to the call of crystal clear waters sparkling in front of you, or to the possibility of diving into the water and, for an instant, blocking out all your worries and pains.

Britain has got its own special link with lidos and swimming pools, as highlighted in a show that will be opening this week at London's Victoria & Albert Museum.

Organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), in partnership with the V&A, "Into the Blue: The Origin and Revival of Pools, Swimming Baths and Lidos" (20th July 2019 - 19th April 2020; Architecture, Room 127 & 128a), is a visual story of British swimming pools told through the architectural drawings, photographs and models from RIBA's collections (you can check out further images of pools, baths and lidos from the RIBA archive at this link).

Early bath houses from the 17th century in Great Britain were modelled in the style of Roman baths. At first communal bathing areas were designed to provided people with public access to washing and laundry facilities.

In the 1800s dirt was perceived as a sign of immorality by the Victorians and first and second class baths were established as a health solution especially after cholera epidemics prompted the 1846 Baths and Wash House Act.

As the decades passed, though, things slowly evolved: swimming became more appreciated and, by 1875, London boasted the Charing Cross floating bath moored on the Thames at Hungerford Bridge (it closed in 1884). The floating bath was a "men-only" facility as women were rarely taught to swim (which meant that in sinking disasters most victims were usually female).

When swimming became more popular and started being considered a healthy and recreative hobby, mixed bathing facilities arrived on the scene, radically changing the collective habits of people who went to swimming pools and lidos to socialise, sunbathe, relax and have fun. 

Many pools opened along the English coast in the 1930s, and 169 lidos or open-air pools were also built, among them the Saltdean Lido in Brighton.

There were swimming pools in pastel colours or with an Art Deco style, while others were particularly refined and elegant thanks to their gilded interior (the exhibition features for example a drawing of the grand Empire Pool in Wembley, opened in 1934).

Swiming pools returned to a more functional purpose after the war with hundreds of public baths being built between the 1960s and the early '70s.

Things changed in the decades that followed with swimming pools closing down in the '80s and '90s, but there is currently an open-air lido revival in Great Britain, while restoration and regeneration of historic pools provided a new life to establishments such as the Jubilee Pool in Penzance, Cornwall. Originally built in 1935 and designed to resemble an anchored ocean liner, the largest seawater lido in the UK was saved by a public campaign and reopened in May 2016 after a £3m repair project by Scott Whitby Studio (it currently organises different fun events including inflatable unicorn and flamingo derbies...).

From austere and brutalist pools to Art Deco ones with or without diving platforms, from Roman baths to Zaha Hadid's London Aquatics Centre, "Into the Blue" includes drawings, models, photographs and film footage of various places such as the Saltdean Lido, Broomhill Pool Trust (with historic film footage from 1947 and stills of the derelict pool in 2001), New Brighton Lido and Victoria Baths in Manchester.

The exhibition combines architecture with a social investigation as people go to lidos and swimming pools to be alone and exercise but also to spend time together and socialise.

There are still some battles to fight when it comes to swimming pools as the future of some of them is still precarious, but the main point of this event is not just pondering about the loneliness and sadness that are instantly generated by an empty pool, but about the endless fun, joy and delight that lidos and swimming pools can give to people.

While drawings, models and photographs are all cool, the exhibition should have maybe been accompanied by its own soundtrack (the list of water-related tracks is long - Moby's "Into the Blue" should be an obvious choice...) and should have included a small selection of swimwear from the V&A fashion collection. After all, you need architecture, but also fashion to trigger the imagination of visitors and conjure up dreamy fantasies of a refreshing swim in their minds.

Image credits for this post

Saltdean Lido, East Sussex, by RWH Jones, 1938. Photographed by John Maltby  © John Maltby / RIBA Collections

Southport Colour lithograph by Fortunino Matania (1881- 1963), issued by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company, ca. 1930, V&A Collection 

Machine-knitted wool swimsuit, Neyret, 1937, V&A Fashion Collection

The Joy of Summer Holidays in a 1954 Cole of California Ensemble

At a recent Sotheby's auction of garments from Claudia Cardinale's wardrobe, there were three Cole of California bathing suits. If you like this brand, you should check out the LACMA digital archives as they feature quite a few designs by Cole of California created by Hollywood costume designer Margit Fellegi (the equivalent for Hollywood swimsuits of Edith Head for proper garments).

One of the most colourful pieces is this ensemble comprising a swimsuit and a matching jacket characterised by prints of fuchsia, green and yellow polka-dots on a white background, designed in 1954.

The jacket was a classic piece, a coordinating accessory designed for poolside comfort, while the swimsuit was made in a Lastex yarn that guaranteed the wearer a well-sculpted silhouette. The ensemble was showcased in the "California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way" exhibition that took place at LACMA in 2011 and retains the playfulness of California and the joy of summer holidays. Have a lovely Sunday!

Image credits for this post

Women's ensemble (jacket and swimsuit) by Margit Fellegi for Cole of California, 1954 © Margit Fellegi Estate. Reproduced with permission of The Warnaco Group, Inc. All rights reserved. For Authentic Fitness Corp., Cole of California

The Radiant Beauty of Mutating Perspectives: "Alberto Biasi. Between Reality and Imagination" @ Palazzo Ferro Fini, Venice

An experimental exhibition took place in 1962 at the Milan and the Venice-based Olivetti shops, curated by Bruno Munari, and featuring innovative artists from the Gruppo T and Gruppo N, alongside Munari, Enzo Mari, Paul Bury and Getulio Alviani.

Alberto Biasi was part of the Gruppo N and, almost 60 years after that event, he's back in Venice for a retrospective at Palazzo Ferro Fini.

"Alberto Biasi. Tra realtà e immaginazione" (Alberto Biasi. Between Reality and Imagination; until 18th July) is a journey through Optical Art, perceptions and visual illusions.

His works feature indeed surfaces and images that change in accordance with the point of view of the spectator, giving the  impression of an image in constant movement. Born in Padua in 1937, Biasi co-founded Gruppo N in 1960 and worked with them until 1967, but never abandoned his personal research and passion for visual illusions.

He took part in a lot of experimental events in the '60s, a decade in which Op Art was particularly appreciated and Biasi was considered at the time one of the main representatives of the Italian Optical movement together with Gianni Colombo e Getulio Alviani.

Throughout the years he became well-known for his deconstructed canvases that offered viewers multiple perspectives and exhibited both in Italy and abroad (his works were also featured in the seminal 1965 exhibition about kinetic art "The Responsive Eye" at New York's MoMa). 

The event in Venice features a selection of works produced between the '60s and 2013 that highlight Biasi's technique and passion for dynamic perceptions. The exhibition is an exploration of four different production cycles - "Torsioni", "Ottico Cinetici", "Politipi" and "Uniche Tele".

"Torsions" includes bichromatic works based on classical geometries but made with PVC strips that allow the artist to come up with unusual visual effects; the "Optical Kinetics" section features instead works that show the artist's quest for innovative perspectives and dynamic tricks.

The "Polytypes", made between the '60s and the end of the '90s, are characterised by an overimposition of layers, and the last section - "Unique Canvases" - includes recent works painted on the back of a canvas, and therefore only visible through strategic cuts and torsions on the surface. The artist created these dynamic effects thanks to different painting techniques or unconventional materials such as PVC.

In all the sections there is a fluidity of forms, shapes and inspirations, if the artist explores any dichotomies he does so to create dialogues between them rather than juxtapositions.  

Biasi often rediscovered and reinvented these cycles and techniques employed to make them throughout his career, combining unconventional materials and using different colours that seem to transform according to the point of view from which the viewer admires them. 

"Between Reality and Imagination" is highly recommended to artists, graphic and fashion designers, but also to all the fans of Generative and Op Art who would like to rediscover this Italian master of mutating perspectives.    

Image credits for this post

All images courtesy of Alberto Biasi Archive

1. Alberto Biasi, Rilievo ottico-dinamico, 1962  

2. Alberto Biasi, Oggetto: gocce, 1971  

3. Alberto Biasi, Dinamica dell'ombrello giapponese, 1991 

4. Alberto Biasi, Va dove ti porta l'occhio, 1991 

5. Alberto Biasi, Vedo oltre... ...un po' optical ...un po' cangiante, 2013, 

6. Alberto Biasi portrait

7 - 10. Installation views of "Alberto Biasi. Between Reality and Imagination" at Palazzo Ferro Fini, Venice 

The Gaze as an Act of Defiance: Zanele Muholi @ The 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice

Identity and gender with a fashion twist, that's how you could describe Zanele Muholi's portraits on display in several sections of the Arsenale at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice and in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini.

Known for her evolving series of portraits of South African black lesbians entitled "Faces and Place" (2006-ongoing), the South African photographer and filmmaker works against muting and invisibility.

Born in 1972 in Umlazi, South Africa, Muholi, the co-founder in 2002 of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) and of Inkanyiso, a platform for queer and visual activism, defines herself as a visual activist rather than just an artist and photographer.

Her work often results in an investigation of the discrepancies in post-apartheid South Africa between the equality promoted by its 1996 Constitution and the bigotry and violence targeting individuals within the LGBTQ community, and explores the nature of trans, intersex, and queer lives.

Her powerful portraits on view at the Venice Biennale can't certainly be ignored. Part of the "Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness" (2012-ongoing) series, these images form a sort of visual diary of 365 images in the life of a black lesbian in South Africa.

The portraits, taken in different places including Cagliari, Nuoro, Cape Town and Parktown (Johannesburg), are printed in a large format and hung above or at the side of different entrances of the Arsenale, but it is not the format that is important, but the pose of the sitter, usually staring at the viewers' gaze, confronting and challenging them, expressing feelings going from pride and curiosity, to disenchantment and sadness.

The series is completed by the silver gelatin prints on view in the Central Pavilion in which Muholi avoids instead the gaze of the viewers.

This series is much more personal than others and beautifully composed and, like all her other series of images it has a fashion twist: in her pictures there are indeed often striking headdresses and headpieces made with simple materials, including ropes, hair bun shapers and scissors or extravagant jewellery pieces made with safety pins. 

In the notes accompanying the photographs at the Giardini the artist and activist explains: "Experimenting with different characters and archetypes, I have portrayed myself in highly stylised fashion using the performative and expressive language of theatre. The black face and its details become the focal point, forcing the viewer to question their desire to gaze at images of my black figure. By exaggerating the darkness of my skin tone, I'm reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other." 

Zanele Muholi's works are currently also part of the exhibition "Kiss My Genders" at London's Hayward Gallery (until 8th September), an event comprising works by over 30 artists, all of them tackling gender issues.