At this Year's Venice Biennale, fashion and art are in a more direct dialogue. Dior, Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Prada and Burberry all support the exhibition in a variety of ways, working with art to create a journey of imagination and reflection that leads us to reflect on our own situation in the post-human era.
As an important contemporary art event, the 59th Venice Biennale is open to the public from 23 April to 27 November 2022. The exhibition was postponed for a year due to the epidemic.
The Theme Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, a children's book by Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, describes a fantasy world in which life is constantly reconstructed through the prism of the imagination, where anyone can be transformed into another person, or even an object. Chief curator Cecilia Alemani described it as a "parable" of the last century.
The Biennale has three themed areas: "The Manifestation of the Body and Its Deformation"; "The Relationship between the Individual and Technology"; and "The Connection between the Body and the Earth", where art creates an imaginative and contemplative journey that leads us to reflect on our own situation in the post-human era.
Cecilia Alemani is the 5th female chief curator in the history of the exhibition and the first Italian woman to curate the Biennale. It is reported that a total of 213 artists from 58 countries participated in the exhibition this year, of which more than 90% of the participating artists were women, setting a record for the largest number of female artists. Many of them have close ties to fashion brands. For example, Tomaso Binga, an Italian woman who participated in this exhibition, participated in the design of the Dior fashion show.
Museum of the Ca' d'Oro
On the day of the 23rd, Dior hosted a dinner party to support the Venetian Heritage Foundation in restoring the Museum of the Ca' D'Oro. Peter Marino, president and chairman of the Venice Heritage Foundation, an international non-profit organization, has been involved in the design of several Dior boutiques, including the brand's flagship store on Avenue Montaigne in Paris.
Fabrizio Pless reinterprets Lady Dior
Dior also commissioned an 82-year-old Venetian video artist, Fabrizio Plessi, to reinterpret the brand's iconic handbag, Lady Dior. This Lady Dior handbag will be on display at the brand's flagship store in Venice.
Also a supporter of the Venetian Heritage Foundation, Louis Vuitton will also fund the Musée d'Oro to fund the restoration of the historic late Gothic palace.
In addition to preserving historic buildings, Louis Vuitton is passionate about contemporary art. This year, the Fondation Louis Vuitton participated in the official parallel exhibition project curated by Ceilia Alemani for the Venice Biennale. The Louis Vuitton Espace Cultural And Arts Space presents the three-dimensional work "Apollo, Apollo" by German female artist Katharine Grosse specifically for this biennale. This large-scale installation is made of metal mesh and molded by the artist's own hands, and the colors are vivid and colorful, symbolizing the gradual melting boundary between the artist's body and the colored materials during the creation process.
《Apollo, Apollo》
Apollo, Apollo's draped form and saturated hues are reminiscent of famous Venetian crafts such as Fortuny weaving and terrazzo mosaic tiles, while the fluidity of the material echoes the city's crisscrossing waterways and sparkling waves. In the dark and quiet exhibition space, Apollo, Apollo opens a doorway to the dream world, allowing visitors to question the reality and illusion in their own eyes.
In the first week of the Biennale, Louis Vuitton also renovated eight traditional newsstands to add colour and culture to the streets of Venice. These local newsstands have been turned into limited-time bookstores, which exhibit Louis Vuitton's travel book series "City Guide", "Fashion Eye", "Travelogue" and so on.
This year marks the second consecutive year that Bottega Veneta has become an official partner of the Biennale di Danza (Biennale di Danza) in Venice. The 'Dancing Studies' dance performance program was carried out by Bottega Veneta in collaboration with the Pine collection. Inspired by Bruce Norman: A Study of the Balance of Opposites, the work was presented by Greek dancer and choreographer Lenio Kaklea, with costumes designed by Matthieu Blazy, creative director of Bottega Veneta.
Bottega Veneta's Venice store releases a collection of capsules inspired by Olivetti typewriters. The typewriter was photographed by renowned interior photographer Francois Halard in the Olivetti showroom and designed by architect Carlo Scarpa. The showroom embodies not only Scarpa's talent, but also the beauty of the typewriter itself, and the 15 limited edition handbags pay homage to this multidimensional design concept.
"Feeling the Way" large solo exhibition
The British Council presented a major solo exhibition of artist Sonia Boyce OBE RA's "Feeling the Way" at this year's Venice Art Fair. "Feeling Her Way" immerses visitors in the improvisations of five black female musicians. Boyce brings artists together to improvise, collaborate and perform with sound. The rooms of the pavilion are surrounded by sound, sometimes harmonious and sometimes conflicting, conveying different feelings of freedom, strength and vulnerability.
Nowadays, fashion brands are increasingly interested in related topics that affect human life, even if they are difficult to understand. Dealing with science is undoubtedly an intellectual challenge for a cultural institution whose identity is rooted in the field of visual arts. How does a luxury brand develop an exhibition of ideas and knowledge? How do you find a way to explain the rigor of science that everyone can understand?
The Human Brain: It All Begins with Thoughts exhibition
The Prada Foundation presents the exhibition "The Human Brain: It All Begins with Thought" during the Venice Biennale. The exhibition occupies three floors of the exhibition hall building. At the heart of the second floor, 32 combined screens feature presentations from 36 neuroscientists, psychologists, neurolinguists and philosophers from five continents. They study neuroscience experiments, and their philosophical and ethical dimensions.
Like the Brain, The Conversation Machine is a self-organizing system that responds automatically, constantly constructing and assimilating its own order and disorder. Through excerpts from more than 140 hours of interviews, participants seemed to be listening to and responding to each other's statements; they kept entering and exiting; objects related to their work were constantly presented; a group of discussants walked back and forth on the screen; others sat in chairs and fell into persistent, silent; and like the human brain, the dialogue evolved according to a logic of prediction and surprise. Giancarlo Comi, chair of the Scientific Committee of the Human Brain, believes that "it allows us to participate in social life in a deeper way, respecting and appreciating the diversity between people and ideas." ”