The Art of Fashion - Installing Allusions

This autumn Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be exploring the boundaries of fashion. Today’s fashion designers are entering the area of fine art and in their turn influence the art world. The Art of Fashion reveals the sparks that fly at the interface between fashion and art. New and existing works by twenty-five international designers and artists provide a confrontational visual experience.

Fashion shows and advertising campaigns have had their day. Fashion designers present their work with installations, performances and sculptural designs. Like art, today’s fashion is collected by museums and private individuals. Conversely in recent years artists have been exploring the visual world of fashion. The fixed boundaries between fashion and art have become blurred. For the first time The Art of Fashion combines the two disciplines in a confrontational visual spectacle.

Exclusive Exclusive new works by five top international designers are at the heart of the exhibition. The H+F Fashion on the Edge Foundation invited Viktor&Rolf, Naomi Filmer, Hussein Chalayan, Anna-Nicole Ziesche and Walter Van Beirendonck to make brand new works for the exhibition. The designers abandoned the principle of a wearable collection and went in search of the boundaries of fashion.

Unsettling The Art of Fashion features around fifty varied works by fashion designers and artists from all over the world. Starting from the principles of fashion, visitors will automatically find themselves in different areas. Patterns and shapes and clothes become sculptures, a fashion show is transformed into a performance and the imaginary world that fashion evokes is the same as we see in art. The fantasy world of Walter Van Beirendonck lies close to the Sound Suits by Nick Cave; the sculptural jewellery by Naomi Filmer and the objects by Christophe Coppens have the same tactile unsettling shapes as the sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, which in turn have strong thematic similarities to Martin Margiela’s work.

The Art of Fashion
Installing Allusions
Kuratoren: Jose Teunissen, Judith Clark

Künstler: Viktor & Rolf, Naomi Filmer, Hussein Chalayan, Anna-Nicole Ziesche, Walter Van Beirendonck