Hasta La Ideas

Three exhibitions of photographs, films and fashion from Annie Lenox’s union jack pant-suit to Daphne Guiness’ personal McQueen collection

With the Spring/Summer 2012 Fashion Week in full swing in Europe right now, groundbreaking style is taking center stage on more than just the runways. While “Fashion in Italy: 150 Years of Elegance,” celebrates the country’s long-term evolution in styles and trends, and the birth of Italian prêt-a-porter, here are three more fashion-focused exhibits going on at museums around the globe.

The House of Annie Lennox at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Like many musical artists before and after her, Annie Lenox seamlessly integrated a unique personal style with her work as a musician to create an iconic pop star persona. This one-room installation, created in collaboration with Lenox herself, features photographs, costumes, and various mementos and ephemera chronicling the Scottish-born songstress’ four-decade career, including her years as one-half of the Eurythmics before continuing on as a solo artist. The collection presents Lennox’s personal style as one that dances between both genders. Though glam rockers Elton John and David Bowie most often cited for their Brit-inspired ensembles, visitors will be pleased to see the vivid union jack menswear-style suit, which she donned in 1999, alongside dazzling sequined dresses. Open through 26 February 2012.

Irving Penn and Issey Miyake: Visual Dialogue at 21 21 Design Sight, Tokyo

Encompassing 13 years and more than 250 photographs, the artistic partnership between Irving Penn and Issey Miyake, two creative giants in their respective fields, was an unlikely and curious one. After seeing Penn’s photographs of his garments in an American Vogue editorial, the Japanese designer asked Penn to shoot his entire collections, which he did from 1987 through 1999, resulting in an incredibly comprehensive compendium of images. What’s even more impressive is that during their 13-year collaboration, Miyake and Penn chose not to interfere with each other’s process. Miyake shipped his collections to New York, giving Penn complete artistic license during his photo sessions, while Penn never attended any of Miyake’s runway presentations. In addition to photographs from this period, the exhibition also includes an animated film short by cartoonist Michael Crawford.
Open through 8 April 2012.

Daphne Guinness at the Museum at FIT, New York

Thanks in part to the recent, record-breaking Alexander McQueen show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daphne Guinness, a friend and steadfast patron of the late designer, has become a popularly-known figure for her boundary-pushing taste. A champion of emerging designers, specifically those who embody a dark, avant-garde aesthetic (such as McQueen and Gareth Pugh), the brewery heiress’ has contributed 100 pieces from her own closet, including haute couture ensembles from Chanel, Givenchy, Lacroix and Valentino, as well as two dozen Alexander McQueen garments that have never been on display before. Accessories aren’t any less dramatic: consider her signature soaring heel-less platform shoes, or her dazzling “body armor” jewelry for a lesson in how not to be a wallflower. Several films by Guinness are also on display, including “The Phenomenology of the Body,” an examination of the politics of clothing.
Open through 7 January 2012.

Images in order from top courtesy of Image © V&A/La Lennoxa, The Irving Penn Foundation and The Museum at FIT.

When we last left news of the American Folk Art Museum, things weren’t looking good in the slightest. Despite having sold their large, still relatively new Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects-designed building to the adjacent MoMA and moving into a much smaller space in New York’s Lincoln Square neighborhood, thereby supposedly saving them from the millions in debt they’d been held down by for years, things were still apparently rough going. At that time, with the NY Times reporting that their “financial picture [had] grown so bleak,” it was widely assumed (even by members of the museum it seemed) that their days were numbered and its large collection would soon be broken up and sent to a variety of other institutions. However, that seems to have all been avoided, with an announcement made by the museum yesterday, saying that their board has voted unanimously to keep it open. As part of that vote came a number of changes. First, the museum will develop a new financial strategy “that ensures the Museum’s fiscal viability.” Second, the board elected one of its own, Monty Blanchard, who has served there since 2003 and donated 75 pieces in 1998, as the museum’s new president. Finally, in re-purposing one of their worst case plans, they’ve decided that they’ll share pieces from their collection with other museums, but without that having to close up shop entirely business. Here are some details about that plan:

In addition to developing a financial plan, the Trustees are also creating a strategy that will increase the visibility of the Museum’s renowned collections and extend the American Folk Art Museum brand. The Museum will seek to establish a revitalized and expanded program of loans to collaborating New York City institutions, as well as packaging traveling exhibitions around the U.S., as ways of sharing folk art with wider audiences. The Brooklyn Museum, the New-York Historical Society, and the Museum of Arts and Design have expressed interest in working with the American Folk Art Museum to identify potential exhibitions where the museums respective collections inform and excite one another. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display approximately 15 major works of art from the collection in honor of the opening of the American Wing and The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art.

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A series of experimental audio guides asks listeners to discern the truth about art

For their fifth annual fall festival, the French Institute Alliance Française turned the average museum audio tour into a mysterious game of fact or fiction. Made in collaboration with the conceptual sound collective Soundwalk, “Crossing the Line” leads listeners on an hour and a half tour of NYC’s Museum Mile along 5th Avenue, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Neue Gallerie, the Guggenheim and Central Park. The five remarkable writers narrating the tour devised authentic or imagined stories that ask the question “What do we rely on to determine the truth from fiction?”—this year’s festival theme.

Available in French and English, each of the five audio segments can be downloaded from the Soundwalk website and played individually if you’re only interested in a particular museum or played together as the full tour.

The tour begins at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with American writer and art historian Teju Cole and then the French novelist and poet Olivier Cadiot. With experimental sounds laying the backdrop to these intriguing stories, the listener becomes entranced with the tales, never knowing if they’re real or dreamed up. The tour continues at the the Neue Gallerie’s Cafe Sabarsky with writer and professor Phillippe Claudel, before moving on with writer Camille Laurens, who guides you through the Guggenheim. Finally, poet and performance artist John Giorno ends the tour with a collection of poems as you join him just inside Central Park at the reservoir.

Running through 16 October 2011, a full list of events for the fall festival is available from FIAF. The audio tour is available for download or to listen online at the Soundwalk site.

Cool Brittania Peter Lanyon’s “Airscape” of 1961 and below, a 2007 chair by Tom Dixon. (Images courtesy Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence)

As London designers today kicked off their turn on the global fashion calendar, the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design is putting the finishing touches on a major exhibition highlighting its impressive collection of contemporary British art. Opening next Friday, “Made in the UK: Contemporary Art from the Richard Brown Baker Collection” will showcase approximately 100 works by artists such as David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Jim Lambie, Tacita Dean, and Julian Opie. The show traces the collection of Baker (1912-2002), a Providence native and Rhodes Scholar who lived in London during World War II before moving to New York, from British takes on Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art to the moiré effect canvases of Bridget Riley and the YBA explosion (Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, and Rachel Whiteread are all represented). Baker proved to have a sharp eye for emerging artists and donated around 135 works to RISD and provided the museum with funds to further enrich its collection of British art. “He never lost the thrill of discovering new talent, and, as he could afford it, continuing to support those whose work he had previously collected,” says Jan Howard, who curated the exhibition with Judith Tannenbaum. “Made in the UK” will be on view at the RISD Museum through January 8.

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This weekend, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston unveils its Linde Wing for Contemporary Art with a 24-hour party (“artful attire encouraged”) during which the institution will screen Christian Marclay‘s “The Clock.” The MFA acquired the work, which is made from more than 1,000 film clips, earlier this year in a joint deal with the National Gallery of Canada. Can’t make it to Boston? Get your Marclay fix at the newsstand with the October “Sound + Vision” issue of Wallpaper*, for which the Golden Lion-winning artist served as a guest editor. Marclay reimagined his epic “Manga Scroll” for the magazine, for which he created one of two October covers. The other comes from the pulsing, digital brain of Kraftwerk, who also served as guest editor. Reclusive frontman (not an oxymoron) Ralf Hutter provided the cover: a take on the band’s iconic imagery that is designed to be viewed through the 3D glasses included with the magazine. Inside, Kraftwerk devotees such as Andreas Gurksy, Thomas Demand, and Neville Brody reveal how the electronic music pioneers influenced them and their work.

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