Hmmm.....
Helmut Lang To Stage First Solo Exhibition
Godfrey Deeny
June 12th, 2008 @ 00:07 AM - Paris
Helmut
Lang is to stage his solo art exhibition, the latest example of signs
of life by the man once regarded as the most influential fashion
designer on the planet.
Entitled ?Helmut Lang ? Alles Gleich Schwer,? or All Has Equal
Weight, the solo effort will be staged in Hanover as part of a major
event named Hanover Goes Fashion, with some 10 exhibitions held in
leading museums and institutes. Lang?s show will be staged in the
German city?s Kestnergesellschaft and curated by Neville Wakefield and
Frank-Thorsten Moll.
?The continuity is that I?m expressing what?s important to me with
the appropriate form, content and context through different mediums and
other dimensions,? says Lang.
The Austrian-born designer and now artist intends mixing as diverse
influences as folkloric rites, maypole ceremonies and ?the exploration
of surrogate skin,? according to a press release.
The show will be a series of installations and objects integrating
?an intimate knowledge of the human form with the personal mythologies
and abstract arrangements of the world at large,? it added. This new
artistic effort draws on ideas first exposed in ?Louise Bourgeois.
Jenny Holzer. Helmut Lang? staged in the Kunsthalle, Vienna in 1998.
The presentation will underline Lang?s increasing focus on fine art
rather than frocks. Since exiting the world of style, Lang has lived
quietly in his $15 million oceanfront mansion in East Hampton, Long
Island. In 2005, Helmut Lang established hl-art, a site for further
artistic exploration and experimentation. The fashion business he
launched three decades ago was subsequently sold to Link Theory, and
Lang is no longer involved with the label.
Lang did unveil an art installation named Next Ever After last
December in Brooklyn?s journal Gallery, with a show whose themes were
his ?personal and historical mythologies.? In effect, it was the
culmination of a yearlong collaboration between Lang and the journal,
an independent arts and culture magazine.
However, his opening in Hanover - precisely because it?s a full solo show - takes his endeavors in art to a more intense level.
Long may he Lang.
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