required a new Sèvres recipe for porcelain – are extravagant and an art form’) commands additional fees for projects promoted with the
ambitious tours de maître. It is fair to say – and both artists say it – that words ‘designed by Norman Foster’ rather than ‘designed by Foster +
if Chanel hadn’t commissioned these works, they probably would Partners’, his multinational practice. Meanwhile he’s sold a stake in his
have never been made. And they are respectfully presented: unlike firm – and by extension, his name – to a private equity group. Similarly,
the feather-filled glass table by Fredrickson/Stallard, the cast-bronze Murakami envisages a day when he will step down as president of his
chandelier by the Goosens atelier and the outfits and accessories by multinational art production and management corporation, which will
Karl Lagerfeld, the artworks are accompanied by museum-grade wall keep his name – an art first. Or maybe he’ll sell his controlling interest
labels. The Chanel staff is fully briefed and answers questions. There is – and his eight artists – to Louis Vuitton (or any other major fashion
a handsome catalogue. house you choose to name), resign his post and change his name. Or
“I promised them a dress rack wouldn’t end up in the middle of maybe Sophie Calle will pull a David Bowie and float her persona on
it,” Marino tells me over a chicken lunch at Spago’s. A coalescing force the stock market, get caught up in a hostile takeover and change her
behind fashion’s fusion with contemporary art, Marino has designed name to Sophie C. Casse. Would it matter? A Sophie Calle is a Sophie
most of the fashion world’s flagships – Chanel, Armani, Fendi, Calle is a Soju Tao is a Sophie C. Casse. As with Warhol’s Coke, would
Valentino, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Donna Karan, Ermenegildo Zegna and any amount of money make it any better?
Barney’s New York – and helped build and showcase important private No artist approached turned down a Chanel commission. No
and public art collections around the world. He is very protective of his artist approached to participate in the Mobile Art project said no. Why
artists, and they are devoted to him (“I don’t work with the brand, I work would they? In this brand new superflat world, where everything is
with Peter,” they each said in turn). He is a passionate and prodigious transparent and market-driven, including the words we use to say so,
art collector – modern and contemporary art, vintage photography, only a sap would do otherwise.
Renaissance bronzes, nineteenth-century ceramics and seventeenth- As being and doing dissolve into the virtual shadows, art alone
and eighteenth-century books. His first private commission was to retains a connotative vestige of the noumenal, and holds out for a
remodel Andy Warhol’s townhouse – for which he was paid in pictures. higher perch. Higher than base ‘luxury’ and more than mere celebrity, it
Now busy building megahotels and shopping malls and flagships, he is the limit point of the name. Artists don’t have to be ‘it’ or ‘just do it’;
has no time for talk of culpability. “Putting Murakami bags in a Louis they only have to sign it. Which is why fashion has such a jones for art.
Vuitton shop in an exhibition space to draw attention to the commerce- Fashion offers artists ‘exposure’ and ‘freedom’, what Obrist calls new
art connection. Hello? Give me a break. Warhol was drawing these ‘circuits’ of communication and ‘parallel realities’, in exchange for their
same parallels in 1966. Art is commerce, baby, and right now it’s a three- names, which are not just shortcuts to highbrow hipness, but lodestones
way collision – art, fashion and architecture. As long as the money lasts, of uniqueness, ready-made talismans of creative power.
it’s great for everyone. As long as the money lasts.” You want integrity? Individuality? Artistry? Name it, it’s yours.
A Coke is A Coke
Works
When I decided I wanted to be an artist I decided I wanted to
(In order of appearance)
communicate with people. That’s why I make paintings and drawings.
peter Marino
But now I have a much bigger desire for direct representation.
Chanel Rodeo Drive, 2007
photo: Martin Muller
Takashi Murakami, CNN, 4 October 2006
courtesy peter Marino architect, new York
rem koolhaas
Prada Epicenter Rodeo Drive, 2004
Direct representation: Murakami’s much bigger desire and Obrist’s
photo: Lydia Gould
courtesy oMa - aMo, rotterdam
reference to General Giap’s slogan call to mind a different kind of
concentration, one touched upon by Emmanuel Perrotin at a conference
Zaha Hadid
Chanel Contemporary Art Container, 2007
held in Paris last March to study the ‘limit point of intervention’ between
courtesy Zaha Hadid architects, London
artists and luxury brands.
Jean-Michel othoniel
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the big luxury groups began investing
Mon lit (adaptable en salon ottoman), 2002
in galleries, which will become their research centres, just as they have
Murano glass, steel, 290 x 190 x 240 cm
courtesy Galerie emmanuel perrotin, paris
their small brands, which they hope will grow. We are going to see
constellations of galleries under one management. I think that this will
exist secretly. And I think it will have to stay secret.”
Let’s push it further. When fashion designers sell controlling
stakes in eponymous labels, they are potentially forfeiting the right
to continue designing under their own names – think Jil Sander,
Helmut Lang, Inès de la Fressange, Chantal Thomass and Hervé
Léger (who changed his name to Hervé L. Leroux to produce his work
independently).
Could what happened to Léger/Leroux happen in art? Could
fashion’s much bigger desire swallow whole identities?
It has been reported that Lord Foster (praised by the 1999 Pritzker
Prize jury for ‘his steadfast devotion to the principles of architecture as
selling out P61.indd 65 6/12/07 15:09:22
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142