Sometimes the world is too confusing and chaotic, maybe saturated with visual stimuli and it can be difficult to focus and concentrate. Thank God then for Martin Margiela. No, not the brand that at the moment is the equally chaotic expression of John Galliano's mind, but the founder of the brand who, from fashion designer, turned artist.
Martin Margiela has indeed just opened his first art exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations, the 24,000-square-foot art space in the Marais designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas' OMA agency that opened in 2018. Entitled simply "Martin Margiela," the show opened yesterday and will run till January, a prelude to a larger exhibition that will take place in Belgium in the Spring of 2022.
Visitors enter the event through the emergency exit (what's more apt than that as we are by now used to live in an emergency state because of Coronavirus?): a labyrinth of blinds and curtains expects them, maybe metaphors about life and death, purposes, objectives and ends.
There are around 40 pieces on display here, the result of two years of researches and studies with the foundation's workshops, but some of them may not be visible when you visit the exhibition spaces. Quite a few pieces are indeed hidden by covers removed by the staff at the weekend. In this way each week, the team will offer a different interpretation and perspective on Margiela's works and on the themes he wants to tackle through them.
This process hints at the main topics of this exhibition – absence, disappearance, changes/transition, mystery and the passing of time. Some of the artworks, like a bus shelter covered in synthetic fur, emphasise the theme of time as visitors may consider it not as a comment on urban furniture but as an ephemeral installation with no immediate purpose, but with a "Waiting for Godot" quality about it.
Paintings of dust particles and the blank spaces in the exhibition hint at the importance of the non finito (or maybe "the never started" rather than "the unfinished"…), or they may be interpreted as invitations to go beyond that blankness, like Lucio Fontana invited people to go beyond his slashes and reach another dimension full of possibilities or like Paolo Scheggi who offered through his carved out monochromatic surfaces the possibility of exploring a dynamic and infinite sense of space beyond the canvas.
The body appears a lot in artworks inspired by classical sculptures and statues, while hair and beauty are constant themes.
The Belgian designer comes indeed from a family of hairdressers and there are a few works pointing at hair salons and at extreme beauty treatments as well, among them vintage magazine covers from the '60s and '70s with the faces of celebrities and stars hidden by hair; silicon spheres covered with blonde, brown and grey wigs (again a reference to time passing) or the giant red lacquered fiberglass nails stacked against a wall (with a smaller model of the same piece made with porcelain enamel). Images of hair dye, or an enlargement of a picture found on packages of beard dye accompanied by the words "Some grey", "A little grey" and "A lot of grey" ("Triptych") also point at physical changes and mutations.
Trivial things assume new meanings: a tube of deodorant, its label offering details about the exhibition, is used as a poster for the exhibition, while banal everyday things become opportunities for discovery, wonderment and surprise (a vending machine selling the exhibition guide).
The event is also accompanied by a catalogue that shows Martin Margiela's researches and inspirations.
Supervised by Margiela himself in collaboration with Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom and the Lafayette Anticipations editorial team, the catalogue details in 350 pages the entire process of creating the works in the exhibition and features both photos of the final pieces and behind the scenes images taken by the artist himself.
Physically, Margiela is as absent as ever: the reclusive designer, who retired from fashion in 2009 and has been the subject of multiple fashion exhibitions in recent years, appeared in the 2019 documentary Reiner Holzemer's "Martin Margiela: In His Own Words", but he never showed his face on camera, only his hands.
You certainly won't seem him here (or you may meet him without realizing it as we don't really know what he looks like nowadays...), but his spirit, ethos and his passion for minimalist designs pervade the works.
His role may have changed or maybe it hasn't really, after all, even while he was designing his conceptual clothes, he was working like an artist. But maybe his greatest artistic endeavor is his disappearing act. In a world in which we all want to be seen and appear, in which we want to be recognized, acknowledged, loved and revered, in which we sometimes risk our lives to affirm ourselves with a selfie, he was and remains an elusive, invisible, unknown and anonymous creative mind with a unique vision. And you just have to respect him for that.