Artist Liu Bolin had us all trying to spot the designer in his fantastically original shoot for Harper’s Bazaar, which saw the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Angela Missoni, Alber Elbaz and more, perfectly camouflaged into a backdrop of their designs. Bolin’s work is definitely one-of-a-kind but now it looks like the celebrated artist may Read more →
Fashion and art collided head-on last night at the Eli Klein Fine Art gallery in Soho during the opening of Chinese artist Liu Bolin’s exhibition, “Lost in Art”, which included a high fashion collaboration (not of the H&M variety). For those of you who don’t subscribe to Harper’s Bazaar (disclosure: I do), the magazine collaborated with the contemporary artist to literally paint larger-than-life fashion designers Alber Elbaz, Angela Missoni, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino and Jean Paul Gaultier — who was on hand, working the crowd — into the background.
Liu is quite renowned in highbrow (and deep-pocketed — the large size of the pieces sell for $36,000 a pop) arty circles for his quiet but striking conceptual photos featuring himself painted into culturally and historically important locales in China. Harper’s Bazaar special projects director Laura Brown happened to have stumbled upon his work at a Stockholm gallery recently, whipped up this collaboration and skillfully made it work.
Legendary designer Jean Paul Gaultier was in town last night to celebrate the opening of Chinese artist Liu Bolin’s exhibition, “Lost in Art” at the Eli Klein gallery in SoHo. The artist teamed up with Harper’s Bazaar to literally paint some of fashion’s biggest designers (including Alber Elbaz and Angela Missoni), camouflaging them, as is his style, into their surroundings. Gaultier, obviously, got hidden in marinieres. And New York is just a stop on his US tour. Next, the designer takes off to Cali for the San Francisco debut of his own exhibit, “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk”, which opens on March 24 at the DeYoung Museum. (The exhibit previously made stops in Montreal and Dallas and will travel on to Europe later this year).
Along with getting ready to ring in his 60th birthday, fashion’s enfant terrible is a busy, busy man these days. He recently succeeded quote-master Karl Lagerfeld as the celebrity creative director of Diet Coke and co-starred along with a debatably creepy marionette in a trifecta of somewhat bizarre videos promoting the fizzy sugar-free beverage. We managed to wrest Gaultier away from a lively chat with friends for a little talk of our own. He then refreshingly turned the tables on us by kicking off the conversation. (Suggestion: Please imagine this interview with JPG speaking in his charming Parisian lilt.)
