With a little over a week to go to the celebrations of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee that will kick off next weekend in what is being called The Central Weekend, the countdown to quintessential 'made in Britain', that is pomp and circumstance, has officially begun.
With a plethora of exhibitions, events, interactive sites and digital apps, this Diamond Jubilee is a very twenty-first century affair where past and present shall be beamed across the globe in high gilded resolution. More on the nation's best Jubilee-to-dos next week, but for now, in the run up to the festivities in London and the extraordinary sight that will be the Thames Diamond Jubilee River Pageant, Sea Containers House on the South Bank has been given a right-royal-British-billboard this morning in the shape of a 100 x 70 metre wrap depicting the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and is the largest image of its kind to ever be erected (from left, HRH Prince of Wales, HRH Prince Edward, HRH Prince Andrew, Lord Mountbatten, HM The Queen, HRH Duke of Edinburgh, Captain Mark Phillips and HRH Princess Anne)
Visit the official Diamond Jubilee website for more information about events near you and across the country.
This weekend sees the closing of the celebrated exhibition Leather Forever by French luxury house Hermèsand as promised, before leaving for Italy I paid a visit to Burlington Gardens to explore a material that remains the house’s ‘noblest conquest’.
If a brand was human,
leather would be its skin and Hermès would be the top model of them all –
charting the history of six generations up to the present Dumas family member Pierre-Alexis, who is artistic director, the story of Hermès is rich in style as
well as substance.
Greeted by a specially
commissioned leather-lined Citroën 2CV to mark the automobile company’s 60th anniversary in 2008,
the message that visitors would be taken on a journey could not have been more
clear.
Up the stairs and past the unassuming marble statue (Kelly bag under her
arm), the exhibition consists of twelve interactive rooms that have been
exquisitely designed by Alexandra Plat and created by Speeg Michel and
Sigmasix.
From the library
of supple and exotic hides hung from pulley systems to the multimedia
installation of the house’s signature orange boxes piled high adjacent to two
leather craftsmen from the Pantin studios, surrounded by their customised tools
and threads - if the first two rooms were anything to go by this was not to be
any old retrospective.
For anyone who receives the Hermès newsletter or visits the World of Hermès, you will already know creativity with a dash of wit are the key ingredients that keep this brand young and fresh. Between the vitrines of leather goods from the house’s archives and private loans – my favourite being the large bespoke artist’s portfolio – one is walking through a horseshow on white sand in one room and through a curtain of leather piping the next; an incredible digital display projects the motions of stitching and hardware on a series of leather bags and clutches, followed by the final products in all their glory set in a wondrous nomadic pop-up tent with jet set trunks and luggage, immersed in that trademark orange light.
Subtle and discreet as is the brand,Leather Forever is anincroyablepresentation of how to make anexhibition of one of the world’s most expensive luxury brands – free from brash logos – exciting, as well as accessible. Colour, texture and the perfume that is leather make this an exhibition for the senses and it is evident the same attention to detail curatorially has been directly inspired by the heritage of craft and execution that is simply Hermès.
This very execution par
excellence features in the final room where four one-of-a-kind Passe-Guide bags
have been created to represent England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Christie’s
are currently conducting an online auction that will end on 31st May
2012 with all proceeds donated to the Royal Academy of Arts - visitChristiesfor more information.
Leather Forever closes this
Sunday 27th May 2012 at 6pm
It takes the luxury house of Hermès to remind us that the current trend in all-things-craft is in fact an ethos the French brand adhere to every moment of the day and one that has been going since the eighteenth-century. Next week sees the opening of a new exhibition in London, Leather Forever that will celebrate both the brand's desired luxury talent from bags to saddles and silk and its 175th anniversary from its beginnings as an equestrian outfitters. A selection of exhibits from each department will be on display at Burlington Gardens as well as artisans from the house's workshops - cutting templates and stitching leather parts to create one of the many iconic products into a work of art.
The exhibition will chart Hermès' heritage and the importance of craft that the house prides itself on, granting it the status symbol that its products now command globally. Specially commissioned works will be on display as well as a series of four unique Passe Guide handbags, that debuted in the A/W 2012 collection, to represent England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, all crafted in sumptuous leathers and hides that will be auctioned online at the end of the exhibition by Christie's. I'll be reporting on the exhibition after it's opening so be sure to visit jonathanvelardi.blogspot.com next week - until then for further details on the exhibition visit theWorld of Hermès.
Leather Forever 8th - 27th May 2012 6 Burlington Gardens London W1S 3ET Images courtesy of Hermès
... to the opening of the Festival de Cannes 2012, and we all know what that means: queue highly anticipated Wes Anderson feature, Moonrise Kingdom (The Kingdom Come, January 2012). Here's the film's official poster in oh-so Anderson-aesthetic... tic tac tic tac...
Seek refuge from the recent deluge that is British Spring time in Sprüth Magers London outpost this month and be amazed at the new series of work by German artist, Thomas Demand. Using the simple materials of paper
and card, Demand reproduces familiar environments and settings in extraordinary
detail and depth - in The Dailies these everyday scenarios
are photographed, recording their deliberate flaws where a corner edge has
not been glued down flat or a join is not abutted as it would normally be. The
minimal arrangements scrutinise and magnify the beauty of both the artist’s practice as well
as that of the everyday – authenticity and artifice are challenged and the rare
technique of dye transfer printing, which Demand employs in this series giving a thick and saturated print surface, only
affirms these themes to produce an image almost suspended in time and isolated
in the world that it was inspired by.
The eyes of the art world and the pen nibs of the critics faced London at the beginning of the week for the anticipated retrospective of Damien Hirst at Tate Modern. In what is the first extensive survey of the artist's work in a British institution, the opening of the exhibition reflected the gravitas that Hirst now commands: not only has the Tate chosen Hirst to occupy their summer 2012 slot - during the height of the country's Royal Diamond Jubilee and Olympic celebrations that will be visited by hundreds of millions around the world - the artist gave a primetime television interview of the exhibition on a national network station, inviting some of the most expensive works of contemporary art into the living rooms of millions across the country. While I challenge anyone to compete with the accessibility of contemporary art that is unquestionably being pioneered by Britain, as well as Channel 4, the network behind the interview (whose choice of presenter in personality Noel Fielding was not to everyone's liking - cue The Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak who received a tirade of abuse from Fielding fans on Twitter), the element of media attention is precisely how Hirst has risen to his position today, through tabloid hysteria of formaldehyde, sharks and front page Doctor Death attributes created by red-top giant The Sun back in the Nineties.
After David Hockney's criticism of Hirst's 'factory' practice earlier in the year, diehard traditionalist critics and commentators, probably Sunday painters themselves who could only dream of a team of skilled assistants, dived into several debates around 'con-artists', 'frauds' and obviously the dirty word of 'money'. Money (in its millions) is a word seldom detached from a sentence with the words 'Damien' and 'Hirst' in them. After the artist's historic Sotheby's sale in 2008 and creation of the world's most expensive work of art in the form of an 8601 diamond encrusted human skull, costing £14 million, it's not difficult to understand why. Hirst himself simply justifies his million-pound-mediums as materials that were accessible to him at the time. Can one really argue with that? With every critic denouncing Hirst's content and mainstream ventures such as his commercial arm Other Criteria and even the factory transparency now for all to see at damienhirst.com, there is praise of genius and icon that places Hirst at the top of contemporary British art. On the markets, a Hirst is reportedly selling for less than in 2008 but who is to say a renaissance is not around the corner. Hirst is ultimately a living brand, a brand that competes with renowned trademarks such as Warhol or Haring, directed by their posthumous foundations - Hirst is forty six years old, has reportedly returned to painting by hand (The Devil's In The Detail, October 2009) and is unlikely to retire to the Devon countryside just yet. While this is not the beginning, illustrated in the way the artist cringes at his first exploration of colour on kitchenware when an art student during the televised interview, it is certainly not the end for brand Damien Hirst.
Nowadays not even the exhibition gift shop is saved from scrutiny - with limited edition Hallucinatory Head spin-painted skulls on sale for no less than £36,800 it's unsurprising this souvenir made a fair few inches of newsprint this week. I myself love a good gift shop and I am fascinated how pencils and rubbers are not enough to cater for the cultural caché that gallery-goers now demand. Here are a few of my favourite, albeit reasonably priced, items from Damien Hirst at Tate Modern...
Your very own White Cube: Fridge Art
Magnet Set £9.95
Luxury Addict
Pill Scarf £125.00
It's Raining Paint
Beautiful Amore Umbrella £39.95
Ironic Tasseography
The Incomplete Truth Anamorphic Cup & Saucer £12.50
Damien Hirst 4th April - 9th September 2012 Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG
Following in the footsteps
of Josef Albers and Daniel Buren (Souvenirs For All Seasons, December 2010) Japanese photographer Hiroshi
Sugimoto makes his mark on silk - a material synonymous with none other than French luxury house, Hermès.
The limited edition large format print measuring fifty-five inches square will
be inspired by the photographer’s Color of Shadowseries with a selection of twenty
Polaroid colour gradations that will be printed by ink-jet - a similar process adopted
by Buren for his collaboration - on one hundred and forty silk twill scarves. The limited
edition series will consist of seven style variations and contribute to the Hermès
Editeur project that bridges the creative studios of arts and crafts onto wearable
textiles of quality since 2008. Hermès X Hiroshi Sugimoto will officially be
presented at Art Basel contemporary art fair this June.
Visit the World of Hermès for more information and click here for the artist's official website.
Dear readers, Winter in Britain is firmly
behind us and I think the saying ‘coming out of hibernation’ is rather
appropriate given the recent Spring heat here on the Isles as well as the fact I have
neglected my trusty blog of late. But I assure you there is good reason and I
am therefore very excited to announce the redesign of my website
jonathanvelardi.com where all my online
activity may now be found in one place. Art, Culture & Lifestyle Writing, Contemporary Artand
my #highlife and #lowlife Blog and Twitter accounts are all
represented in a new and fresh homepage design.
In addition, I have been working very hard
over the last few months in setting up my own creative design enterprise under
my personal direction. I have wanted to create a commercial arm
of my professional practice for some time and I am very proud to introduce you
all to this new line of design-based production that will evolve from
commercial and private commissions and projects to merchandise and limited
edition product under STUDIO VELARDI.
New logo for a new brand: Studio Velardi
A collection of environmentally friendly stationery will
inaugurate the launch of Studio Velardi and will hopefully be available at a stockist near you in 2012. While it is too
early to divulge details, I am particularly happy to say Studio Velardi is
working on several projects later in the year and I look forward to sharing
this news in the near future. So until then, please join the mailing list and
follow @studiovelardi on Twitter
for the latest updates or get in touch for all enquiries about my design
services and products atinfo@studiovelardi.com
The walls of Kensington Palace may have a wealth of
stories to tell of its royal occupants since the seventeenth century; William
III, the young Queen Victoria and Princess Margaret, however it is
unquestionably recognized for its symbolic role adopted by the public as a
place of tribute after the tragic death of Diana, The Princess of Wales in 1997.
The sea of flowers and sentiments outside the late Princess’s home are some of
the most iconic images of the twentieth century and has since shaped public
behaviour towards celebrity and Monarchy alike.
Tomorrow the doors of Kensington Palace will reopen after a year-long twelve million pound restoration project in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and Olympic Games, launching with the exhibition, Diana: Glimpses Of A Modern Princess. Installed in Apartment 1A where the late Princess resided, and scheduled to be the future home of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge next year, the exhibition will reflect some of the most important and memorable moments in Diana’s public life and will focus on her iconic fashion and style. If the Grace Kelly: Image Of A Movie Star at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London or The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is anything to go by, fashion sells both on the streets as well as in the galleries and will undoubtedly be a sell out show forHistorical Royal Palaces who run the royal residence in West London.
Dresses aside, the curators of the exhibition were intent to avoid a formal institutional display, perhaps conscious of the creative expectations that such showstoppers now command, and have commissioned contemporary illustratorJulie Verhoevento produce a modern toile based on moments throughout the Princess’s life, incorporated into a wallpaper repeat pattern in a graphic collage in watercolour.
Diana with newborn Prince William
Drawing from photographs of Diana’s engagement announcement to Prince Charles, subsequent wedding, royal tours around the world and the last portraits to be shot by Mario Testino as well as architectural elements that resemble that of the palace or from Althorp, the resting place of the Princess at her ancestral home, Verhoeven employs her trademark technique to introduce a contemporary atmosphere within a loaded historical setting of both pomp and pop culture. While if a little naïve and childlike given the context of a woman in her prime, the style is resolutely Nineties, similar to the bright kitsch children’s wallpaper that I remember from the decade that was to be Diana’s last.
Diana shot by Mario Testino
Printed by hand in England by interiors firm and royal warrant holders
Cole and Son who produce traditional period designs, the wallpaper will be
installed throughout the exhibition in the palace’s State Rooms and will
reflect the lasting influence in style and history of the Mother of the future
King of England: whether this is the grande finale of a commercial chapter past
in order to allow for chapters anew to evolve in the highs and lows of the
dynasty of the Windsors is still to be seen. For now, memories of the past fuel
what is a record period of public popularity and a right royal renaissance in
the year where the matriarch of the British Monarchy celebrates sixty years on the
throne.
One
hundred and sixty five years of beauty, design and innovation is immortalized
into a panther and encapsulated over two years to create a three and half
minute film of the history of Cartier through a contemporary lens. In an international media campaign to
celebrate the French jewellers' anniversary of luxury creation, L’Odyssée de
Cartier takes viewers onto a fantasy CGI journey through the environs of St
Petersburg and across India to China, following the brand's synonymous panthère to its birthplace at
Place Vendôme, Paris, all while being in the comfort of one’s own home.
Directed by Bruno Aveillan with Paris agencyMarcel and an epic score by Pierre
Adenot make up the exclusive ingredients that one expects from a brand whose
clients include royalty and celebrity, past and present: credentials that crown
an iconic brand who will hopefully be providing dreams for centuries to come. Escape
the monotonous advertising of the everyday here… .
The polar opposite of stability must be the laborious act of moving home. When you have drugged your possessions as many times as I have, as if by magic that cardboard box suddenly transforms itself into a perfectly acceptable chest of drawers or side table and one surrenders, with little will left, to the cardboard-house-lifestyle that you have only just avoided or crossed over the street from when walking back home, albeit yours is under a roof. I have realised there are items that make the last-in and first-out from my mobile side table - a habitual hierarchy of sorts; my most cherished photo frames, a fedora that was gifted to me when I used to live in Chicago (if it’s made it this far, a house move is not going to stand in its crease-free way) a pair of highball glasses and a gin bottle (moving is thirsty work) and lastly, my Keith Haring tome. This is no paperback and as someone who is known for their packing etiquette – heavy items at the bottom – I find myself keeping this weighty publication for last and first out. Is it the grinning triclops on the cover? The graffiti characters that dance around the page edges? The instant gratification of turning through the five hundred-plus pages of the artist’s colourful career? Put simply, it’s everything and much more. It lives on top of my old school trunk and as I work at my desk on my computer, all three eyes on the cover burn a hole in the side of my head and invite me for much needed distraction into a world of prolific artistic expression - the deep end of the inspiration pool for anyone interested in the birth of public art, street culture and graphic allegory that was pioneered by Haring in the late-twentieth century.
Keith Haring - Rizzoli, 2008
Today sees the opening of the first
exhibition that explores the artist’s early career in Keith Haring: 1978-1982 at
the Brooklyn Museum. With over three hundred objects and works on paper,
experimental videos and a rare presentation of Haring’s personal sketchbooks
and journals, which encapsulate the everyday life that inspired the artist, the
exhibition guarantees to be an exciting journey into the art scene, subcultures
and politics of New York City in the early Eighties through the eyes of an energised nineteen year old artist. Haring’s focus on bringing his recognisable style out of his
studio and onto the streets is an important shift in viewing art as well as its accessibility to a wider commercial audience which is of particular interest in
respect to my own art practice. What has to be one of the best uses of social media to date, in conjunction with the exhibition, The Keith Haring Foundation has created aTumblr site and is posting pages from the
artist’s journals every day up to the closing of the show. Lists, photographs
and sketches make up the intimate visuals that inspired a young Haring who was
at the beginning of creating a vocabulary of signs and codes that he was later to become
famous for. Like anyone who knows they have a good thing going for them, Haring
writes in his Secret Code Book No. 138QT,
“DANGER: keep out of reach of enemy agents and spies!!”
Thanks to the work of The Keith Haring Foundation, the
late artist’s work is as provocative and relevant today as it was during his
lifetime and continues to work on a number of contemporary collaborations and projects from the worlds of design and fashion - most recently Garage Magazine x Haring, Comme des Garçons Original x Haring and Colette x Case Scenario x Haring to name only a few - that attests
to the graphic expression of the everyday into a symbolic legacy, page by page.
Launching with its second issue at the beginning of this year’s international Fashion Weeks, Garage Magazine proves it's much more than high art, high fashion and high life. Dedicated to Sex & Relationships, Issue No. 2 has a lot riding on it – we all remember the release of Issue No. 1 last year with itsintimate Damien Hirst installation & interactive cover (Peel Slowly & See, August 2011) – but what with the continuing debates during the American presidential election and current state of affairs in England over gay marriage, the issue that also looks at internet dating and fertilisation technology is very much on the political pulse, and if the content doesn’t get your pulse racing then the issue’s artist-designed condoms may very well get you in the mood. Mat Collishaw, Keith Haring, Sue Webster and Tim Noble have all contributed their own conceptual take on the condom wrappers, which can be found in every new issue of the magazine and proves that no surface is safe from high art.
The
doors of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris open to the public toady for the
Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibition that explores the French fashion house’s
journey from the epitome of utility during the industrial age of travel in the
mid-nineteenth century to the status symbol of luxury, which the brand is
celebrated for today. Monsieur Louis Vuitton reacted to the needs of an era by
starting his business as a packer in 1854, producing lightweight, water-resistant
trunks that symbolized the cultural motions of high society and the birth of a
brand. The infamous 'LV' monogram was created in 1896 and travelled around the
world wherever its owners went.
That very monogram continues to be produced
today and has appropriated even greater socio-symbolic meaning under Marc Jacobs
as the brand’s Creative Director since 1997. The exhibition draws parallels
between the two men and ultimately looks at the marketing strategies that the house of Louis Vuitton has pioneered for over a century. The fashion pack will
swoon over cuts and cloth but Jacobs’ collaborations with international
contemporary artists will have the art crowd hooked on works by Takashi
Murakami, Richard Prince, Stephen Sprouse and Yayoi Kusama to name a few, who have
injected another layer on top of the iconic monogram: from illustrations and
graffiti, to text and dots. Fashion’s relationship with popular culture has no
doubt been a reaction to the once-conceptual direction Jacobs introduced to his
well-travelled, culture-rich customers that is now commonplace in the luxury
sector. The brand’s most recent collaborator is filmmaker Christian Bosrtlap
who has been commissioned by online luxury lifestyle platform NOWNESS to create a short that will be screened at the exhibitIon, depicting this very idea of travel through the luxury brand’s
heritage and reinvention of its iconic style throughout the centuries that is uniquely la marque
Louis Vuitton. .
Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs opens today at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and runs to 16th Septemebr 2012 - click here to view Borstlap’s short, Louis Vuitton I in full.
Writer and contemporary visual artist working between Los Angeles and London.
Available for articles and reviews on contemporary art, design, fashion, lifestyle, travel, profile and events – no subject is out of bounds and challenging briefs are very welcome - view a selection of my published work at jonathanvelardi.com
jonathanvelardi.blogspot will report on art, culture and lifestyle from the #highlife to the #lowlife across the www and beyond...
