Earlier this month, the FIAC art fair took place in Paris. "Paris a la Mode" covers where the worlds of fashion and art collided in ways myriad. At the opening of the new Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees, Vanessa Beecroft displayed barely clad models side-by-side with LV luggage. Meanwhile, at Stella McCartney, models paraded down the runway in fabrics designed by Jeff Koons. The fair also featured the haunting sculptures of Berlinde de Bruyckere and anatomically correct installation artistry.
While Beecroft arrayed her models at LVMH with the same sophistication as the display of Takashi Murakami bags (and on the same shelves), a more humanist approach to the human body could be found at the exhibition of melted and twisted torsos by Berlinde de Bruyckere at the Maison Rouge Fondation Antoine de Galbert, on view at the same time.
Are these connections designed to entice us to believe that fashion is art? Or that art is now fashionable? In any case, the association of Pinault and Arnault with the art market helps link fashion to art as high-priced luxury goods.
susannah_breslin
I'm lost
June 2005
OCT 30, 2005 06:14 AM