During Paris Fashion Week A/W 2011-12, I visited a rather unusual exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery: “Rodin – Sugimoto”, an exhibition on sculptures by Auguste Rodin in confrontation with photography by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Three monumental sculptures from Rodin: The Three Shades, a group study in which the standing figure of Adam from The Gates of Hell is repeated in shifting perspective. Monument to Victor Hugo, a figure composition that depicts the artist deep in thought and The Whistler Muse, an armless female figure that attempts to climb a mountain in an allegory of the challenge of artistic creation.

The images from Sugimoto’s series Stylized Sculpture are inspired by key 20th century fashions from the Kyoto Costume Institute. The photographs show garments from designers such as Balenciaga, Miyake, Comme des Garçons, Chalayan,… Shot in black and white and on headless mannequins, and thus removed from the context on the human body and its emotive associations, the garments reveal their pure formal qualities in terms of dramatic contrasts in form, volume and surface. Sugimoto captures the abstract, sculptural nature intrinsic to the history of clothing and in doing so depicts the eternity beyond evanescence. My favourite picture is the Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian dress, it was nice to see it in a whole new dimension!

This season contributors to the paris exhibition are:

nono pessoa (belgium)
collectif du 7 janvier / stephanie d’heygere (france / belgium)
been by d’heygere (belgium)
irene alvarez for alabelby (belgium)
j smith esquire (united kingdom)
spaghetti gang bang (austria / belgium)
sayaka yamamoto (japan)
house of matching colours (south america)
hide a.h. (siberia / japan)
serkan cura (turkey)

On Saturday I went to Brussels for an exceptional stocksale on Raf Simons archive clothing. There was a fatastic amount of nice pieces, so if you have the time the stocksale is still on until end of March, more info and appointments via thefabricsales@gmail.com

After I took the opportunity to see the exhibition of Hedi Slimane at Galerie Almine Rech.

Last week Delvaux, Belgians fine leather luxury goods company presented a great new collaboration with Dirk Van Saene.

He created a series of two silk square scarves (Jour & Nuit) inspired by the Brillant (one of the most iconic bags of Delvaux). During the presentation at the Delvaux ateliers in Brussels Van Saene presented the scarves on ceramic heads representing iconic fashion models.

The scarves are on sale via the e-shop of Delvaux for €340,00.

Twiggy

Peggy Moffit

Alek Wek

Lisa Fonssagrives

Linda Evangelista

Naomi Campbell

Kate Moss

Claudia Schiffer

Today I found out that Deichtorhallen in Hamburg will organise an exhibition “TraumMänner” from March 11th until May 22nd. “TraumMänner” (translated litteraly Dream Men) will show around 100 works from photographers such as Rankin, Bruce Weber, Ellen von Unwerth, Peter Lindbergh,…

I am very happy that one of my favourite images (above) is also selected, a picture by Nathaniel Goldberg in a series called Poseidon for GQ Men 2007!

Yesterday I went to see the opera “Nixon in China” at Kinepolis in Antwerp. Via a new concept of “Opera in the Cinema” the opea was live broadcasted from the New York Metropolitain Opera.

“Nixon in China” by composer John Adams and directed by Peter Sellars is considered one of the cornerstones of American minimalist music. It depicts the visit of the US president Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Nixon and his advisor Henry Kissinger to China in 1972 to meet China’s iconic chairman Mao Zedong, his wife Jiang Qing and prime-minister Chou En-Lai, and also illustrates the influence this event had on all these characters.

With this trip, Nixon became the first US president to visit mainland China while in office. This trip was Nixon’s opening to China, but actually designed to put pressure on the USSR (click here), bringing about an enormously important shift in the Cold War balance. It enabled the Americans to concentrate their military power in Europe, while the Soviets were confronted by adversaries East and West, now working together against Moscow. The trip was a succes because soon after the USSR was forced to negociate and within three months they signed two arms control agreements.

One of my favourite scenes was in the first act, where Nixon arrives with the presidential plane. Apparently, on the president’s instructions, television journalists were strongly favoured for this trip, as they would better capture “dramatic” images of the trip. For eight days the American audience would be able to wittness a spectacular parade of images from China, the first they had seen in more than twenty years!

Nixon’s flair for diplomacy and drama is very clear in this scène. Nixon told Kissinger that he and all other people on the plane were to stay there until he had descended the gangway and shaken prime-minister Chou En-lai’s hand. As added insurance, a Secret Service agent blocked the aisle of Air Force One to make sure the president emerged alone. In the opera, just as Nixon and his wife have descened you see Kissinger peeping out very short from the door of the airplane.

During the break there were also interviews with the cast, performers, composer and director Peter Sellars. I loved his final quote: “What a great day to perform Nixon in China, when yesterday we have all got the fantastic news that Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak resigns!”

More info on the opera, click here.

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My favourite movie: Painting! Sometimes when it gets too busy at work I would be so happy to have this guys job!

Other installations:

Another favourite was the project “The 7 lives of garbage”:

Alexander and Frederik at the Wiels restaurant.

More info on Francis Alÿs, click here.

A.F. Vandevorst opened the Berlin Fashion Week on January 19th with the presentation of the A/W 11/12 collection of A Friend. A Friend is a concept launched 4 seasons ago and is their affordable second line, a direct result of dialogues with A.F.’s friends, taking into account their desires and suggestions when creating the collection.

The collection is mainly focused on jersey and knitwear and also expanding with shoes and accessories for the A/W season.

More info www.afvandevorst.be

For the direct link, click here.