HELMUT LANG SHREDS HIS FASHION ARCHIVE FOR ART AT THE FIREPLACE PROJECT

Archives are generally presented in ways that respect and protect their original forms: libraries are filled with leather-bound tomes, museum exhibitions display garments in plexiglass cases, and so on.

But for Helmut Lang, the Austrian-born artist, the archival method is anything but conventional. Over the course of his boundary-pushing career as a fashion designer (he was one of the first to introduce PVC into his creations), his archives eventually amounted to 6,000 garments (after he donated a large volume of his work to leading fashion, design, and contemporary art collections worldwide), tracing the history and evolution of the Helmut Lang brand.

But last year, a fire broke out in Lang’s New York studio, almost ruining much of his remaining archive. Ever the creative thinker, the designer toyed with the idea of deconstruction, and it seemed, if his archives were to be forever lost, he might as well be the architect of their demise.

The result is “Make It Hard,” Lang’s solo exhibition that will run from July 22 – August 8 at The Fireplace Project in East Hampton. Curated by Neville Wakefield, the exhibition presents thousands of Lang’s designs from the past 25 years, shredded and molded into a series of 16 floor-to-ceiling tubular structures.



“The materials and fabrics he used to give temporary definition to the body are now just traces of natural and synthetic fibers, plastics, metals, leathers, fur, skins, feathers and hair,” states Wakefield, “erasing the past and the difference they once stood for.”

To those who have followed his work, it’s no surprise that Lang’s archive would come to take on such a radical form. For him, the relationship between art and fashion design has been a symbiotic one, as he infused his silhouettes with references to the artistic traditions of Vienna, reinterpreted classical notions of tailoring, and worked with innovative fabrics and textures to help create his now iconic men’s and women’s collections.

And just as Lang has always blurred the lines between fashion and fine art, this exhibition resonates with the design philosophy that has guided him all along: at the end of the day, fashion and art begin and end as one.

- Yale Breslin

Arcade Fire...

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Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’

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Peppa Pig

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Andreas Gursky

One might say that Andreas Gursky learned photography three times. Born in 1955, he grew up in Düsseldorf, the only child of a successful commercial photographer, learning the tricks of that trade before he had finished high school. In the late 1970s, he spent two years in nearby Essen at the Folkwangschule (Folkwang School), which Otto Steinert had established as West Germany’s leading training ground for professional photographers, especially photojournalists. At Essen, Gursky encountered photography's documentary tradition, a sophisticated art of unembellished observation, whose earnest outlook was remote from the artificial enticements of commercial work. Finally, in the early 1980s, he studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie (State Art Academy) in Düsseldorf, which thanks to artists such as Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter had become the hotbed of Germany's vibrant postwar avant-garde. There Gursky learned the ropes of the art world and mastered the rigorous method of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs had achieved prominence within the Conceptual and Minimal art movements.

When Gursky, together with other Becher students, began to win recognition in the late 1980s, his photography was interpreted as an extension of his teachers' aesthetic. But the full range of Gursky's photographic educations has figured in his mature work, enabling him to outgrow all three of them. His photographs—big, bold, rich in color and detail—constitute one of the most original achievements of the past decade and, for all the panache of his signature style, one of the most complex. The exhibition Andreas Gursky surveys that achievement from 1984 to the present. It focuses on work since 1990, when Gursky turned his attention to subjects that struck him as representative of a contemporary zeitgeist—and found equally contemporary ways of picturing them. In pursuit of this project, Gursky expanded his scope of operations from Düsseldorf and its environs to an international itinerary that has taken him to Hong Kong, Cairo, New York, Brasília, Tokyo, Stockholm, Chicago, Athens, Singapore, Paris, and Los Angeles, among other places. His early themes of Sunday leisure and local tourism gave way to enormous industrial plants, apartment buildings, hotels, office buildings, and warehouses. Family outings and hiking trips were replaced by the Olympics, a cross-country marathon involving hundreds of skiers, the German parliament, the trading floors of international stock exchanges, alluring displays of brand-name goods, and midnight techno music raves attended by casts of thousands. Gursky’s world of the 1990s is big, high-tech, fast-paced, expensive, and global. Within it, the anonymous individual is but one among many.

Helmut Newton

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Richard Serra

My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes...

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I love this video - would love to take a seris of stills and frame them...

Ed Ruscha

Milly

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Stories for Boys (and Little Girls)

It's funny how certain books remain with you. I can remember sitting in our school library in a circle and our teacher reading us these books and showing us the images. When my daughter was born, I read these to her and they brought back all these memories. As an adult (or perhaps as a parent),I find them extremely emotional - I love these stories...

Joy Division

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Cinema Paradiso

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Marimekko

Diptyque, Paris 1961

United by a passion for creativity and design, three artisans became friends and partners. They open a shop at 34 boulevard Saint-Germain to showcase their avant-garde fabric designs and decorative items from their travels.












The trio offers colored candles to match their fabrics, adding perfumed wax. Customers fall in love with the inimitable fragrances. Word travels. Cachet grows.












In 1963, they introduce the first diptyque scented candle. In 1968, the first line of diptyque fragrances is launched. Today, the three Parisian artists are world-renown purveyors of fragrance and scented candles.











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Paris

Featured on THE WINDOW...

Paris fashion is synonymous with chic, but the notion that there’s a single pan-Parisian look is wildly outdated. A quick tour of the city will provide evidence enough that each of Paris’s quartiers has its own distinctive vibe (and set of stylish locals).




Here, we dive into Chloé‘s 2011 collection to find bags and shoes that will take you from the heights of Montmartre to the banks of the Canal St. Martin, from the winding streets of the Marais to the stately boulevards of the Triangle d’Or.



As one of Paris’s most breathtakingly historic (and currently in-demand) neighborhoods, the Marais boasts everything from 17th-century architecture to the city’s hottest galleries. The neighborhood also hosts an unofficial daily fashion show, with bright young things like actress Clémence Poésy subtly strutting their stuff along its narrow streets. If you’re headed this way, no need to be intimidated—Chloé’s got you covered with the metal bit ankle boot and the large Paraty satchel.



Artists like Dalí, Modigliani, and Picasso once considered Montmartre home, and today, it still exudes a whimsical, artistic energy. We can imagine our Montmartre muse, Audrey Tautou (or perhaps her alter-ego, Amélie Poulain) sashaying around in Chloé’s cross strap ballet flats while toting the Marcie crossbody satchel.




Intellectuals and writers (think Hemingway, Joyce, Sartre, and de Beauvoir) once filled St. Germain’s famed literary cafes, and today, this quarter is as chic as they come. It’s no wonder director Sofia Coppola has chosen to call this spot home. We wouldn’t be surprised to see her sporting Chloé’s scalloped ballet flat and Marcie wallet while swinging by the neighborhood’s beloved Poilâne bakery.



Today, the city’s young intellectual and artistic elite have carved out their own niche on the banks of the charming Canal St. Martin. Lou Doillon (the stylish offspring of filmmaker Jacques Doillon and icon Jane Birkin) would fit right in at any of the quartier‘s wine bars or bookstores, toting the Madeleine satchel and navigating the cobblestones in her Terry Kid boots.




Bordered by the glamourous Avenue Montaigne, Avenue Georges V and the famed Champs-Elysées, the Triangle d’Or (or “Golden Triangle”) is one of the city’s swankiest addresses. With its high-end shops and luxurious hotels, you won’t want to be caught dead in these parts without a seriously sophisticated look. Take your cues from Catherine Deneuve, one of Paris’s grande dames, who would look quite at home rocking Chloé’s metal bit knee boot and Elsie evening bag.