Thursday 26 July 2018

Film Noir Femme Fatale: Julien Fournie's 'First Crime' Collection

One of the dramatic gowns in red and black with hand embroidery at Julien Fournié's haute couture show in Paris. Photograph (above) and cover picture by Elli Ioannou for DAM. See video of show below
The femme fatale of film noir was the inspiration for French couturier Julien Fournié's enthralling new First Crime haute couture collection for Autumn Winter 2018/19 held in the darkly atmospheric and historic surrounds of the 17th Century Temple Protestant de l'Oratoire du Louvre in Paris, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Elli Ioannou

A shimmering blue gown that clings
to the body yet has a high,
asymmetrical décolleté
AS the haunting sound of a remixed Heart of Glass by Blondie soars up into the vaulted arches of the Oratoire du Louvre, the silhouette of a woman appears against a blood-red background wearing a sleek gown of black feathers. She is the first of the sultry femmes fatales to appear on the runway. Like heroines from an Alfred Hitchcock film, played by Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren or Kim Novak, the models walk haughtily down the runway of Julien Fournié's dramatic haute couture show. The designer has used Hitchcock's famous quote: "Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement" ~ as a leitmotif for the collection.

The couturier encourages you to wonder if the impassively beautiful women with their figure-hugging, chic clothes are the hunter or the hunted. Called First Crime, the collection is inspired by film noir masters such as Hitchcock, Agatha Christie and Paul Verhoeven and the clothes have suitably anatomical cuts that cling seductively close to the body. The feathered black dress that opens the show has a 1950s silhouette with a slim waist and wide A-line skirt that shows the extraordinary handiwork of Julien Fournie's Paris ateliers, including the beautiful embroidery and sequins, all made in-house.

This is Mr Fournié's best collection yet ~ cohesive and engaging with cleverly sculptural drapery and beautifully cut asymmetrical bias inlays. The colour palette is equally dramatic with a mix of ruby red and dark blue contrasted with fawn. Fabrics include mohair, silk and chiffon with several gowns and a pantsuit covered in a cascade of rippling sequins that subtly change colour from burgundy to violet and blue.

This is Julien Fournié's best collection yet with  sculptural drapery and beautifully cut asymmetry

This graphic,fluid dress is a standout
designs of the collection
The designer says the collection was also inspired by the television series The Handmaid’s Tale and particularly the characters Offred, played by Elisabeth Moss and Serena Joy, played by Yvonnes Strahovski. The couturier wanted the designs to be very clear cut and free of obvious embellishments. The long silhouettes are emphasised by flowing skirts, swirling at the end of the runway. One of the standout designs from the collection is the graphic yellow, white and black gown (see at left) cinched at the waist that follows the shapely form of the woman but is buttoned to the neck with long sleeves.

Other highlights of the collection include an ankle-length gown in mustard-yellow with a full skirt (see below) and a glimmering, electric blue evening dress that fluidly clings to the body revealing the form yet concealing the body with a long sleeves and a wonderfully draped skirt (see above). A virtuoso example of the work of Fournié's ateliers is the long, shimmering gown that changes colour from deep reds and purples in a column of sequins overlaid with silk chiffon in burgundy and blue (see in highlights below).

Julien Fournié's family background is directly connected to the making of clothes and accessories, as one set of grandparents were tanners and another made lingerie and corsets. The designer has a Castilian mother and a French father and although growing up he loved to draw, Fournié decided to study medicine and take a degree in Biology once he finished school. However, after two years he changed to study fashion and went on to the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, graduating in 2000. His early promise was evident as he won the Moet & Chandon Prize for best accessories when he graduated. Also during the three years of study and apprenticeship, he worked at famous fashion houses to develop his skills such as at Nina Ricci, Christian Dior and Givenchy haute couture.

The couturier wanted the designs to be very clear cut and free of obvious embellishments

A flowing mustard-yellow gown with
a full skirt and buttoned to the neck
One of the highlights after Julien Fournié graduated, was working for Jean-Paul Gaultier who employed him as an assistant designer in haute couture for the Autumn Winter 2001/2002 collection and he also had the opportunity to work on the stage costumes for a Madonna tour.

Later the young designer gained a lot of experience as the creative director at other brands, including at Paris-based haute couture fashion house Torrente. But when he was 32 years old, Mr Fournié founded his own eponymous haute couture company. The designer had always loved the fine workmanship and tailoring of haute couture and the work of the French ateliers that produce and decided that by 2009 he was ready.

It took only two years for the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Française ~ the governing body of the French fashion industry ~ to grant Julien Fournié's fashion house guest member status in 2011, which allowed the brand to bear the “Haute Couture” label and participate in the Paris Haute Couture fashion week.

By 2016, the Federation Française de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture announced that its members had convened on December 16th and elected two new members to the full status of haute couture. One was the storied French house Schiaparelli, which was founded in the 1930s by Elsa Schiaparelli, and the other was Julien Fournié. He is the 15th designer to become a couturier and to have been officially elected as a permanent member like the big houses such as Dior, Chanel and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Julien Fournié first worked at famous fashion houses to develop his skills such as at Nina Ricci, Christian Dior and Givenchy haute couture.

 Julien Fournié takes his bow at his AW1819 haute
couture show in Paris
"I'm part of the ninth generation of couturiers, so I have to be the protector of the traditional and handmade savoir-faire of haute couture, namely: embroiderers, feather workers, people who make flowers in an incredible way," the designer said.

"But also, I should project the métier into the future. And that’s haute couture, it has to always be three steps ahead. The official name ‘permanent member of Haute Couture’ and the fact that I am one of the 15 worldwide houses that have this label, is going to have crucial repercussions for my business."

Julien Fournié  is now part of select group of grand couturiers and fashion houses that include: Adeline André, Alexandre Vauthier, Alexis Mabille, Chanel, Christian Dior, Franck Sorbier, Giambattista Valli, Givenchy, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Maison Margiela, Maurizio Galante, Schiaparelli, Stéphane Rolland and Yiqing Yin.

Watch the video of the Paris show and see further highlights from the collection below


This long, shimmering gown changes colour from deep reds and purples in a column of sequins overlaid with silk chiffon in burgundy and blue.
The brilliant "anatomical cut" around the body that Julien Fournié is known for, that also combines the lilting flow of a full skirt to the ankles.  


The swing of a brilliant blue skirt at the end of the runway at the atmospheric and historic surrounds of the 17th Century Temple Protestant de L'Oratoire du Louvre in Paris.
Like heroines from an Alfred Hitchcock film, played by Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren or Kim Novak, the models sashayed down the runway.
In voluminous blue and green, this pantsuit and long coat have the feeling of a 1950s femme fatale.

 The spectacular bridal gown with its lace bodice and full skirt recalled Grace Kelly's wedding dress to Prince Rainier in Monaco in 1955.

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Saturday 7 July 2018

The Elegant Nomad: Couturier Stéphane Rolland's New Rhythm

Stéphane Rolland's AW18/19 couture collection on stage at Radio France in Paris. Cover and main picture by Elli Ioannou for DAM
French couturier Stéphane Rolland's uplifting new haute couture show was held at Radio France in Paris with live percussionists. Inspired by the romance of the Silk Road and the reality of our contemporary peripatetic lives, the Autumn/Winter 2018/19 collection was full of both billowing silhouettes and sleek, figure-hugging outfits evoking the modern urban nomad. Story by Grania Connors. Additional reporting and photographs by Elli Ioannou

Voluminous gowns in rich silks
 
THE rousing sound of six percussionists playing vigorously above the stage created an exciting and lively backdrop to couturier Stéphane Rolland's latest couture collection in Paris.
 
Not for him a nondescript and soulless white runway with models marching down the centre to an electronic beat. Wearing billowing capes and richly embroidered gowns, models criss-crossed the steps of the famous Studio104 at Radio France, creating beautiful compositions of moving figures in chiaroscuro in time to the music.

This Autumn/Winter 2018/19 collection also hinted at spring with feather-light taffeta ballgowns, floating across the stage. "We've worked very hard on this show," Stéphane Rolland says backstage. "There are many different artists involved and it's been so wonderful to put together and collaborate with musicians at the Radio France orchestra, which usually performs all over the world but managed to make itself available." The couturier was inspired by travel from the Silk Road to Europe and the Middle East and the collection has a dramatic play of drapery and volume suggesting billowing capes blowing in the breeze as travellers cross a mountain pass or the dunes of a desert .

Skirts are slit the to thigh to reveal contrasting
pants in burgundy or cream
"I worked a lot on generous volumes," he explains. "You know when you’re in the desert, and you drape yourself, to protect yourself from the heat and cold."

Reflecting the travel of another age on horseback he also has tightly-fitting jodhpurs as part of the collection.

"These were all images in my head, from the Silk Road, from Asia, through Europe, Eastern Europe to the Middle East, and the whole mix, because what this collection tells us is that we are all nomads today."

"What this collection tells us is that we are all nomads today"

Wearing a beautifully draped white top and cape with a long, straight skirt the first model emerges from the darkness of the stage to the sounds of the percussionists. To the beat of drums, another appears with a tailored but wonderfully fluid dark suit with wide lapels. Crossing the wooden stairs, with sleek hair pulled back into a long pony tail, a tall girl steps down in a creamy-white column of a dress with a flowing, one-sleeved camel jacket belted at the waist with a neat, boxy bag attached.

Gleaming black silk dresses with form-fitting
necks and shoulders contrasted with long,
embroidered cashmere coats
Mr Rolland says he wanted to create a collection that was both wearable and opulent using richly-textured materials. The palette ranges from subtle earthy shades in cream and camel to dark red and gleaming blacks. Fluid, silk pantsuits and graceful jackets are mixed with long coats and slender, embroidered trousers. One of the key accessories was the neat case-clutch made by leather craftsman Philippe Martial worn as a belt and a cuff.

The sense of movement and richness in the collection is enhanced by capacious gowns and coats (see at left) in black and white. A floor length yet simple dress is enlivened with sparkling embroidered crystals and a hooded cape fluttering behind. An evening dress in pale sand with a train attached from the shoulders is decorated with silky-black, three-dimensional flowers and a wide collar embellished with glimmering jewels ~ conjuring up the romance of another age yet with a contemporary twist.

Mr Rolland creates new forms, merging tops, capes, trousers and skirts into one fluent, cohesive design. Loose white trousers are worn with a stylish combined top and coat with puffed and ruched sleeves. Two of the standouts pieces are a voluminous, tobacco-hued mohair coat with billowing sleeves and high neck embellished with mother of pearl (see below) and a figure-hugging top covered in glinting jewels and draped across one shoulder with a long train.

Dramatic plays of drapery and volume suggest billowing capes blowing in the breeze

Figure-hugging leather slit to the navel at the front
and cut low at the back 
Providing a contrast to the pale, flowing pieces are slim, leather pantsuits with a slit to the navel at the front and a surprisingly low cut back, finished with a silken train (see at left).

The designer likes to play with transparency and sculptural forms and this was highlighted by a long, white gown covered in a dynamic, all-over pattern and completed with a floating train. Contrasting with the cream and camel tones of the first pieces to come on to the stage in Paris were a deep burgundy pantsuit and a finely pleated top with large sleeves and a sleek evening gown with long side splits and sparkling embroidery around the shoulders and neck.

One of the most evocative creations of Stéphane Rolland's couture collection is a pale grey silk blouse with wide, pleated sleeves and the waist drawn tight with a flowing skirt behind worn with crystal encrusted form-fitting pants (see main picture above). A black coat dress with one sleeve is wonderfully tailored with a contrast of sparkle from long, tight trousers. A silken, black evening gown is enlivened with a transparent front panel and long splits and a jewelled collar and large, fabric flower floating on one shoulder.

A fluid, cream skirt, cape and top that appears
to merge into on flowing form. The black short top
is finished with wide camel lapels
Mr Rolland's skill as a couturier is exemplified by his creation of new forms, like the black, split skirt worn with a full-sleeved top with wide camel lapels and a cream confection that effortlessly blends cape, sleeve, top and skirt (see at right).

Closing the Paris show were summery sprites emerging from the long chrysalis of winter wearing frothy, translucent ball gowns in taffeta with puffed sleeves (see cover picture).

Dotted with glinting crystals, the final gown was completed with a coronet by jeweller Maison Boghossian who collaborates with Stéphane Rolland on his haute couture collections.

Closing the show were summery sprites emerging from the long chrysalis of winter wearing frothy, translucent gowns

Couturier Stéphane Rolland at the finale of his
AW18/19 show in Paris
The artistry of Stéphane Rolland work has been built on a solid foundation. The designer worked at Balenciaga in his early twenties as creative director of menswear and by the time he was 24 years old he had already launched his own prêt-à-porter business.
He pursued this for six years before becoming artistic director of a haute couture fashion house for a decade. Mr Rolland has also worked as a costume designer and was nominated twice for the prestigious Molière awards. Eleven years ago, he presented his first couture collection under his own name. Today, he is one of only fourteen fashion designers who are full members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris.

See more highlights from the show below or tap on photographs for full-screen slideshow
 Closing the Paris show were summery sprites emerging from the long chrysalis of winter wearing frothy, translucent ball gowns in taffeta with puffed sleeves.
"We've worked very hard on this show," Stéphane Rolland says backstage. "There are lot of different artists and it's been so wonderful to put together and collaborate with musicians at the Radio France orchestra."
Crossing the wooden stairs, with sleek hair pulled back into a long pony tail, a tall girl ascends the wooden stairs in a creamy- white column of a dress with a flowing, one-sleeved camel jacket belted at the waist with a neat, boxy bag attached. 
  An evening dress in pale sand with a train decorated with silky black three-dimensional flowers and a wide collar embellished with glimmering jewels. A floor length, simple gown is enhanced with sparkling embroidered crystals and a hooded cape fluttering behind.
On of the standout pieces, a voluminous, tobacco-hued mohair coat with billowing sleeves and high neck embellished with mother of pearl.
One of the key accessories was the neat case-clutch made by leather craftsman Philippe Martial worn as a belt and a cuff.
 "I worked a lot on generous volumes, " the designer explains. "You know when you’re in the desert, and you drape yourself, to protect yourself from the heat and cold."
Contrasting with first pieces to come on to the stage in Paris, were fluid pantsuits in deep burgundy and white.
 

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Tuesday 26 June 2018

David Bowie Inspires Wooyoungmi's New Menswear Collection

David Bowie's coolly elegant suits and androgynous looks inspired Wooyoungmi's new collection with its mix of Eighties sharp tailoring, Seventies colours and rhinestone chokers. Photograph (above) and Cover picture by Elli Ioannou
Designer Katie Chung has launched her second menswear collection in Paris as solo Creative Director of Wooyoungmi, the fashion house founded by her mother Madame Woo. The Spring/Summer 2019 show is inspired by David Bowie with a romantic bohemian ethos that is close to the designer's heart, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Elli Ioannou

A handsome, deconstructed suit with
broad lapels and pin stripes depicting
the Wooyoungmi logo 
WOOYOUNGMI'S new collection was presented in the cavernous, utilitarian space of a Paris high school with Seventies, geometrically-tiled floors and a wall of large windows flooding the space with light. Located in the French capital's 15th arrondissement, the Lycée Camille-Sée hosted the lively guests on long, low benches in the high-ceilinged room.

It was the perfect backdrop to Katie Chung's iteration of David Bowie in her new show, worn by androgynous models wearing some of the Seventies favourite hues: yellows and browns in stripes and blocks of colour. Combined with a dash of Eighties panache ~ voluminous trench coats and deconstructed blazers with wide lapels and broad shoulders ~ the collection captured today's androgynous zeitgeist  

The designer says she would like the young generation to appreciate the British singer and fashion iconoclast and see his creative legacy explored and reinterpreted. Chung says she wants to present a new version of Bowie, one that inspired her growing up in Seoul. For this latest collection, she didn't want her designs to replicate Bowie's look but rather his sense of style. Her aim is to create a romantic bohemian aesthetic exploring Bowie's gender ambiguity and his play on masculinity and femininity, just as the singer did during his various fashion metamorphoses.

Chung creates a romantic bohemian aesthetic exploring Bowie's gender ambiguity and his play on masculinity and femininity

Yellow tailored jacket and shirt
with large, pointed collar
inspired by Bowie
Chung was particularly drawn to Bowie's coolly elegant tailored Eighties looks that he wore after his earlier, more dramatic stage personae and this is reflected in her range of suits. She has designed the collection using a range of different textiles from checked and pinstriped suits to glimmering knitwear and shirts with a metallic sheen. A luminescent fabric emphasises the more high-tech futuristic approach. Yet the collection also looks back to the power-shoulder, a motif that runs through the collection along with big, deeply pointed collars. There is even a matching yellow jacket and shirt (see at right) that echoes a 1974 Terry O’Neill portrait of David Bowie.

A zing of glam rock heightens the Bowie connection with Chung's use of PVC for check print or peach jackets and shirts worn with denim and leather pants, the gender ambiguity highlighted by glittering diamanté chokers, round handbags and high-heeled, chunky ankle boots. Although mixing streetwear and tailoring is a leitmotif of contemporary menswear, the designer has given it her own signature with its volume, fluidity and combination of soft and hard textures. One of Chung's new additions is the use of the brand's logo WYM that appears on this season's suits, t-shirts and belts.

Mixing streetwear and tailoring is a leitmotif of contemporary menswear, yet the designer has given it her own signature

Voluminous jacket, leather pants, the WYM
belt and high-heeled ankle boots
complete the SS19 look
Katie Chung succeeded her mother at last season's menswear collection after having worked beside her as co-creative director. Chung has said in the past of her childhood that she grew up in her mother's atelier and that she learnt to sew before she could write.

Today, although Madame Woo is still close by and supports her daughter, Katie Chung has confidently taken the reins of Wooyoungmi and is giving it a evocative edge of street style and sportswear that builds on her mother's pioneering legacy as a Korean designer breaking into the Parisian fashion world.

Madame Woo, as she became known, was born in Seoul to an architect and an art and piano teacher. Her father was the head of an architectural firm and travelled overseas extensively, bringing back international magazines which gave Woo Youngmi a sense of the world outside South Korea.

The young Woo became interested in fashion at a time when the country was struggling with post-war political unrest. In 1978, she began her fashion studies at Seoul's Sung Kyun Kwan University. After she graduated in 1983, she was named the winner of the Osaka International Fashion Award, when she was selected to represent Korea.

Katie Chung grew up in her mother's atelier and learnt to sew before she could write

Designer Katie Chung takes her bow
at the finale of her SS19 show in Paris
Later Woo Youngmi launched the menswear brand Solid Homme in 1988, starting with one showroom in Seoul before branching out all over the world. Along with other designer friends, she started the New Wave in the early Nineties, as a platform for young designers to show their work which eventually lead to the creation of Seoul Fashion Week.

The designer founded and launched her own brand Wooyoungmi in 2002 in Paris. The label became known for its art and architecture inspirations and finely tailored menswear with a futuristic edge. Woo Youngmi was showing on the Paris Menswear Week by 2003 and eight years later, the label became an official member of La Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Masculine.

Katie Chung became more involved with her mother's fashion house in 2012 as art director, collaborating with artists for their advertising campaigns. She became joint creative director of the brand with her mother in 2014 later after completing a BA at London’s Central Saint Martins, before taking over the artistic direction of the brand last year.

 Highlights from the Wooyoungmi SS19 Homme Show in Paris
Katie Chung succeeded her mother at last season's Wooyongmi menswear collection after having worked beside her as co-creative director.
Mixing streetwear and tailoring is a leitmotif of contemporary menswear, but Katie Chung has given it her own signature with its volume, fluidity and combination of soft and hard textures.

Guests in the front row at Wooyoungmi SS19, the show was located in the French capital's 15th arrondissement, at the Lycée Camille-Sée.
Katie Chung's aim with the new collection was to create a romantic bohemian aesthetic exploring David Bowie's gender ambiguity and his play on masculinity and femininity.
Models wore some of the favourite Seventies hues: yellows and browns in stripes and blocks of colour.
Guests at the of Wooyoungmi SS19 show held in the cavernous, utilitarian space of a Paris high school.

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Sunday 17 June 2018

MoMA at the NGV: Exhilarating Evocation of the Avant-Garde

Glenn D. Lowry and Tony Ellwood with Umberto Boccioni's bronze sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Portraits for DAM by Paul James McDonnell. See below for Jeanne-Marie Cilento's video interview.
A major new exhibition opens at the National Gallery of Victoria, featuring key works from New York's Museum of Modern Art, from Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo to Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman plus drawings, sculpture and furniture. Many have never been to Australia or left MoMA. We speak to Glenn D. Lowry, Director of MoMA and Tony Ellwood, Director of the NGV. Story by our Special Correspondent in Melbourne Sally Holdsworth

Glenn Lowry, director of MoMA, at the NGV
 with Dali's Surrealist masterpiece
The Persistence of Memory
DAPPER and erudite, Glenn D. Lowry, the director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, stops in front of Salvador Dali’s totemic 1931 painting, The Persistence of Memory. Dali, he explains at the National Gallery of Victoria, painted the image at a time of social change and scientific discovery, just after Einstein’s theory of relativity. “It packs such enormous punch in such a small package,” he says. “Its intensity, its magic is derived by its scale and its impression of space - that time is warped.” With its melting distorted clocks, it is Dali’s way of commenting on the intersection of time and space.

Lowry is in Melbourne for the world premiere of the exhibition, MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art, which has opened at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and will run until October, 2018. This is only the second time the Dali has been lent to an international gallery. Its presence signals the importance that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) gives to this exhibition, which hosts many works never before seen in Australia.

Salvador Dalí (Spanish 1904–89)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
oil on canvas 24.1 x 33.0cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
©Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí
Copyright Agency 2018
 
The historic New York Museum is undertaking a major renovation and this has provided the opportunity for a loan of such magnitude. The NGV exhibition gives life to Lowry's belief that the collection should be shared with the broadest possible audience. 

“Museums have emerged as the pre-eminent civic spaces in today’s culture,” says Lowry. “Museums bring people of different backgrounds - socio-economic positions, ethnic and racial backgrounds, different intellectual positions and geographic position - together in a common experience to look at and think about art and culture.”

In a coup for the NGV, more than 230 hand-picked masterpieces are now installed as part of its 2018 Winter Masterpieces series. The series is a fifteen-year project that began in 2004; past shows have included The Hermitage, Degas and Van Gogh and the Seasons.

"Museums have emerged as the pre-eminent civic spaces in today’s culture”

However, according to the director of the NGV, Tony Ellwood, “this extensive exhibition - years in the planning - is the most ambitious yet attempted.”  “We started talking about this over four years ago,” says Lowry, of early discussions he had with Ellwood. “Tony was in New York at the time we were beginning construction and he wanted to know if we would consider a collaboration. He’s a great colleague, I’ve always admired him and we were thrilled to do it.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German 1880–1938)
Street, Dresden (1908)
(reworked 1919, dated on painting 1907)
oil on canvas 150.5 x 200.4 cm
 Purchase, 1951. Digital Image
©The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018
 
What gives Lowry the most satisfaction about his work as the director of MoMA? “Looking at art and talking to artists is what I love doing, that’s why we do what we do...but I love working with people and this collaboration has really been a partnership.”

This is a reference to the way the MoMA and NGV curatorial teams worked together on the exhibition.  “Watching how they have changed this exhibition as it evolved, that’s an enormous thrill if you like this notion that art should create relationships and conversations, whether it’s between a work of art and the general public, or between curators and institutions,” says Lowry. “So it’s been really rewarding to see that happen.” As Lowry and Ellwood walk through the show, their excitement and pride are palpable.

“It was amazing to walk through the exhibition and realise...we loaned them that!” says Lowry of the collection, which comprises some of MoMA’s best and most well-loved pieces. The works on display in Melbourne span 130 years, covering the significant art movements from Cubism, Surrealism and the Bauhaus, to Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and contemporary art.

"Art should create relationships and conversations, whether it’s between a work of art and the general public or between curators and institutions”

Innovative modern design at the NGV
show including Gaetano Pesce's Moloch
floor lamp (1971)
& Joe Colombo's Universale
stacking chairs (1967) for Kartell

The exhibition includes pieces from MoMA’s six curatorial departments: architecture and design, drawing and prints, film, media and performance art, painting, sculpture and photography. It showcases the museums multi-disciplinary approach to collecting, with notable examples of design, lighting, furniture and technological innovation. Choosing the works to display was a joint decision involving Lowry and Ellwood, and curators from both museums.

 “We looked at the key works that were vital and then started building stories around them,” says Tony Ellwood.  “That’s why there are eight themes, done chronologically, so it’s quite friendly, starting with early works then slowly unfolding and helping to explain why we are at contemporary art today.”

Pablo Picasso (Spanish 1818-1973)
Seated Bather (1930)
oil on canvas 163.2x129.5cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Mrs Simon Guggenheim Fund, 1950
©Succession Picasso/Licensed by
Copyright Agency, 2018



The sprawling collection, which takes up the entire ground floor of the NGV International, begins in the early twentieth century with the European masters who kick-started the New York museum's original collection in 1929. Called Arcadia and Metropolis, it contains the DNA of MoMA, the foundation on which it is built. Significant works from artists of the nineteenth and twentieth century are represented here: Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh and Georges-Pierre Seurat whose delicate pointillist work, Evening, Honfleur, is as magnetic and contemporary today as when it was painted in 1886.

Machinery of the Modern World brings together objects from just before and during the First World War - a time in which an explosive cultural scene was unfolding in Europe. Masterpieces are laid out to show the conversation between objects and thoughts across different mediums. “Energy, motion, design are coded into these objects,” says Lowry, who believes that curating can be like poetry. “There are visual rhymes that also resonate with very thoughtful explorations of the way artists were thinking about the world.”

This marriage of art and design reflects MoMA’s early striving to find the linkages between industrialisation and the high arts. Echoing MoMA’s radical homage to industrial design, the Machine Art exhibition of 1934, the NGV collection features design wonders from the twentieth century. Sven Wingquist’s Self-Aligning Ball Bearing from 1907, is an exemplar of its time and here it is: rounds within rounds, sleekly elegant, still modern (see below).

“We looked at the key works that were vital and then started building stories around them”

René Magritte (Belgian 1898–1967)
The Portrait (1935)
oil on canvas 73.3 x 50.2cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Kay Sage Tanguy, 1956
©René Magritte/ADAGP, Paris, Magritte
Miró, Chagall. Licensed by
Copyright Agency 2018
In the same room, Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel from 1913 (see images in gallery below) subversively marries functional objects, a stool and bicycle wheel, to create one of the first examples of conceptual art. With its lens on the latter part of the century, Flight Patterns shows the effect of increased physical mobility and the impact of the emerging digital age. Solari di Undine’s Split flap board flight information display system from 1996, evocatively captures, both visibly and audibly, the experience of travellers in the pre-digital age.
The 1998-99 work, Emoji, by Shigetake Kurita et al (see below), with its familiar assembly of keyboard characters and symbols, heralds the typography of the digital design era. The exhibition is a vivid reminder of the impact of social and cultural change on design across decades, and its convergence with contemporary art.

“MoMA is very thoughtful about providing the kind of diversity and balance, both culturally, through gender where possible - all the key elements,” says Ellwood.

Early Modernism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus movements in revolutionary Russia, the Netherlands and Germany are explored in The New Unity section. From film to painting to costume design, this era had a global influence. Artists such as Torres-Garcia and Mondrian travelled, forging relationships and connections with other artists, spreading ideas about what modern art meant - visually and in terms of social change.

 "There are eight themes, done chronologically, so it’s quite friendly, starting with early works then slowly unfolding and helping to explain why we are at contemporary art today" 

Frida Kahlo (Mexican 1907–54),
Self-portrait with Cropped Hair (1940)
oil on canvas 40.0 x 27.9cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr, 1943
©Frida Kahlo Estate/ARS
Licensed by Copyright Agency 2018

 
Here, Mondrian’s Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow, and Gerritt Rietveld’s The Red and Blue Chair, are perfectly simpatico (see picture below). In its consideration of Surrealism, the section of the exhibition called Inner and Outer Worlds includes the works of Joan Miro, Rene Magritte and Frida Kahlo’s compelling 1940 work Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair.

The portrait of Kahlo with her long hair shorn, dressed in a man’s suit, is a comment on beauty as a commodity. It gives an insight into Kahlo’s perception of her own beauty and her position as a female artist at the time. Seventy years later, the image is powerful and the message still resonates.

Here, too, are American masters: Edward Hopper’s Gas from 1940 profoundly captures the quotidian life of mid-century America. Iconic pieces are everywhere, instantly recognisable. Not just art, but furniture and everyday design.

In the part entitled Things As They Are, the metallic architectural lines of an oversized Moloch Floor Lamp by Gaetano Pesce from 1971 (see above), contrast with the soft curves and green-and-yellow fabric of the wall-mounted Malitte Lounge Furniture, designed by Roberto Matta in 1966. It’s a fun and head-spinning trip back to the sixties and seventies.

The emblematic Drowning Girl, painted by Roy Lichtenstein in 1963, has been selected as the exhibition’s Pop Art calling card, with it's dramatic cartoonish image and caption, seemingly printed but all painted by hand. An Australian connection is also on display: the work of Sydney-born artist Martin Sharp, whose psychedelic poster design for sixties rock band Cream became the album cover for Disraeli Gears, completely captures the zeitgeist of the decade (see below). Robert Indiana’s LOVE, with its stencilled font, is here too; an indelible reminder of the freedom of the sixties. Moving through rooms and themes, Immense Encyclopedia shows the influence of social and political change as art moves into the postmodern age.

“There are visual rhymes that resonate with thoughtful explorations of the way artists were thinking about the world.”

Roy Lichtenstein (American 1923-97)
Drowning Girl (1963)
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas171.6x169.5cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright, 1971
©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Copyright Agency, 2018




The art collective General Idea’s memorable AIDS (Wallpaper) from 1988, inspired by Indiana’s earlier work LOVE, replaces the familiar letters LOVE with AIDS. It is a reminder of the upheaval it wrought in that decade. Elsewhere, Jeff Koons’s Plexiglas-enclosed vacuum cleaners are like Postmodern sculptures called New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker, they make us question the nature of contemporary art.

Accompanying Lowry at the opening of the exhibition were members of the MoMA team including curators Juliet Kinchin and Christian Rattemeyer; Ramona Bannayan, Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Collections; and Jay Levenson, Director of MoMA’s International Program. They worked with key staff at the NGV, including Dr Miranda Wallace, senior curator of international collections, and exhibition designer, Ingrid Rhule, to curate the milestone collection.

The deft showcasing of such works as Gauguin’s masterful The Moon and the Earth, Andy Warhol’s seminal Marilyn Monroe, and Camille Henrot’s filmic Grosse Fatigue is to witness MoMA’s prescience in tracking art and design over 130 years.

"This ability to imagine new futures and move in new directions guides MoMA today and is embodied in the NGV works"

  Sonia Delaunay-Terk (French Ukraine 1885–1979)
Portuguese Market (1915)
oil and wax on canvas 90.5 x 90.5cm
Gift of Theodore R. Racoosin, 1955
Discussing MoMA’s legacy, Lowry describes its founders and early curators as visionaries who believed that the visual arts cut across all domains.

 “They saw the museum as being metabolic and self-renewing, a place of change, not stasis,” he explains. "This ability to imagine new futures and move in new directions guides MoMA today and is embodied in the NGV works."

And what does Lowry plan for MoMA’s future direction? “First and foremost, to finish this [renovation] project and get it open, and then begin to experiment. If a museum is a laboratory then we are about to finish building the lab. Then we can start playing with it, learn how to use it, discover new ways of thinking and imagining what can happen inside that space.”

MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria from 9th June to 7th October, 2018.
 
Watch the interview with MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry by Jeanne-Marie Cilento



Lyubov’ Popova (Russian 1889–1924) Painterly Architectonic (1917) oil on canvas 80.0 x 98.0 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York Philip Johnson Fund, 1958 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Henri Matisse (French 1869–1954) Music (sketch) (1907)
 Oil and charcoal on canvas.73.4 x 60.8 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of A. Conger Goodyear in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., 1962 ©Succession H. Matisse / Succession H. Matisse. Licensed by Copyright Agency, 2018


 Giorgio de Chirico (Italian born Greece 1888–1978) Gare Montparnasse (The melancholy of departure) (1914 )
Oil on canvas. 140.0 x 184.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of James Thrall Soby, 1969 © Giorgio de Chirico / SIAE, Rome. Licensed by Copyright Agency, 2018




Vincent van Gogh (Dutch 853–90) Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889) oil on canvas. 64.4 x 55.2 cm
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. M. Burden, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Rosenberg, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, Mr. and Mrs. Werner E. Josten, and Loula D. Lasker Bequest (all by exchange), 1989 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018

Paul Gauguin (French 1848–1903) The Moon and the Earth (1893) oil on burlap. 114.3 x 62.2 cm.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018
Pictured at the NGV, works by Umberto Boccioni, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay and Fernand Léger.



Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe (1967) screen prints, pictured at the NGV exhibition.Editions of 250, 91.5 x 91.5 cm each image and sheet. Publisher: Factory Additions, New York
Part of the show at the NGV, Gerrit Rietveld's Red Blue Chair (designed c.1918, painted c.1923) and Piet Mondrian's Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow (1937–42).
Pictured at the NGV's exhibition of works from MoMA, Mark Rothko's No. 3/No.13 (1949) and Jackson Pollock's Number 7 (1950)


At the NGV exhibition, a wall-sized version of Shigetaka Kurita 's Emoji (1998–99). Digital image The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Part of the NGV exhibition, Sven Wingquist's  (Swedish 1876–1953) Self-aligning Ball Bearing (1907).  Chrome-plated steel 21.6 x 4.4 cm diameter. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The MoMA at the NGV show, including influential works such as Andre Derain's expressionistic Bathers 1907 (centre) and Henri Matisse's Music 1907 (right).

Looking across the the NGV exhibition's Modern artworks including paintings by Edward Hopper and Joan Miro
Martin Sharp (Australian 1942–2013) Robert Whitaker (photographer British 1939–2011). Reaction Records (record label) British 1966–67 Album cover for Cream, Disraeli Gears (1967) lithograph 30.5 x 30.5cm Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Architecture and Design Funds, 2014 © Estate of Martin Sharp / Licensed by Copyright Agency, 2018
Robert Indiana (American born 1928) LOVE (1967) Screen print, edition of 250 86.3 x 86.3 cm (image and sheet)
Publisher: Multiples, Inc., New York Printer: Sirocco Screenprinters, North Haven, Connecticut. The Museum of Modern Art, New York Riva Castleman Fund, 1990 © Morgan Art Foundation / ARS. Licensed by Copyright Agency, 2018


Jeff Koons (American born 1955) New Shelton wet/dry doubledecker (1981) Vacuum cleaners, plexiglass, and fluorescent lights. 245.4 x 71.1 The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser, 1996 © Jeff Koons



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