Chanel's art spaceship in New York |
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| Wednesday, 29 October 2008 | |
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Luxury-goods company Chanel makes the 50th anniversary of its iconic quilted purse on a chain, known as the 2.55, an event of an
international scale. Commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's artistic director, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid has created a transportable art gallery to house artworks inspired by the iconic bag.
In this futuristic pavilion, with a strong resemblence of an alien spaceship, 20 international contemporary artists, such as Yoko Ono, Subodh Gupta, Sophie Calle and Daniel Buren, exhibit work inspired by the elements that give the emblematic quilted bag from Chanel its identity. The Chanel Pavilion is made up of hundreds of glossy white fiberglass panels that can be assembled and dismantled over a steel frame in a matter of weeks. Structure and show, known as Mobile Art, will be open to the public in New York, after stints in Hong Kong and Tokyo, until November 9, then move on to London, Moscow and Paris. Chosen by Karl Lagerfeld to create the Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art container, Zaha Hadid is one of the most talented architects of our time, awarded the Pritzker Prize, considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture, in 2004. “She is the first architect to find a way to part with the all-dominating post-Bauhaus aesthetic. The value of her designs is similar to that of great poetry. The potential of her imagination is enormous” said Karl Lagerfeld. |
