Again in 2017, A1043 – a up to date gallery in Paris started by artist Didier Courbot and landscape architect Stéphanie Courbot – hosted an exhibition of performs by Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo. Whilst the radical Japanese style designer is best recognized for her sculptural, avant-garde garments collections, the exhibition instead concentrated on her lesser-recognized home furniture, made in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ‘It doesn’t have a vintage definition it’s outdoors the codes,’ Stéphanie instructed Wallpaper* at the time. ‘What’s attention-grabbing is that style can usually evolve from individuals who do not work in design.’
The latter assertion supplies the impetus for a new exhibition, ‘Fashion to Furniture’ (1 April – May possibly 6, 2023), which opens at A1043 this 7 days. Expanding on the is effective from Kawakubo – which feature after once again here – the exhibition looks far more commonly at furniture designed by fashion designers, from a slew of seminal names such as Virgil Abloh, Ann Demeulemeester, Jean Paul Gaultier and Martin Margiela. The Courbots say that they had been especially drawn to the thought of creators operating exterior of the medium for which they are recognized: ‘Although it is not abnormal for creators to go outside of the scope of their discipline, it is fair to say that these experiments typically outcome in matters that make an perception,’ they say.
‘Fashion to Furniture’ at Paris’ A1043 gallery
‘Fashion to Furniture’, showcasing works from Rei Kawabubo – Comme des Garçons and Ann Demeulemeester
(Impression credit history: © Yann Bohac, courtesy of A1043)
The exhibition commences in the 1980s with the is effective of Kawakubo, who very first designed furnishings in purchase to populate her Comme des Garçons style merchants. The quite often brutalist objects, that includes sharp corners and industrial factors, offered an interplay with the two her garments and the architecture of the unconventional retail spaces. ‘[It is] a technique to create an general and coherent whole… the boutiques she makes in conjunction with architects are meticulously made and replicate really specific suggestions,’ say the Courbots. ‘The designs, elements, textures and proportions are very carefully deemed with a distinct function and meaning.’
Later on will work consist of forays into furnishings by Paris’ enfant horrible Jean Paul Gaultier, who was initial commissioned by French furniture maker By using in the 1990s. In the exhibition, a single of these items characteristics – a stack of trunks on a steel-wheeled stand, which was his choose on a regular dresser (titled the ‘House Mode’ dresser, every of the trunks is actually a pull-out attract). ’At the time this dynamic designer was continually travelling and on the move which is potentially why the whole series is a reinterpretation of journey trunks,’ say the Courbots. ‘This is the earth of travel, as perfectly as of appearances, light, the minute and the ephemeral.’
‘Chair n°13’ by Rei Kawakubo – Comme des Garçons
(Impression credit history: © Yann Bohac, courtesy of A1043)
Other items contain an all-white sofa by Margiela – his label’s headquarters ended up famously rendered fully in the colour, from walls to furniture and the atelier’s laboratory coats – and Demeulemeester’s mid-1990s ’Table Blanche’ set. Also painted white, its floor is created to dress in off in time to expose the wood under. ‘The household furniture turns into a canvas on which the signals of use are etched… the bearer of dress in and tear and the passing of time.’
The most present-day do the job in the exhibition is by late multi-hyphenate designer Virgil Abloh, who transcended his operate at fashion homes Off-White and Louis Vuitton to extend into a lot of fields – including product design and style, art and tunes, along with a number of collaborations with a various array of models from Nike and Levi’s to Cassina and Victorinox. Listed here, his ‘Efflorescence Chair 3’ capabilities, a spray-painted concrete block that is part of a broader ‘Efflorescence’ collection initially made for Paris’ Galerie Kreo in 2019. ‘[The] handful of pieces of furnishings provide the noisy, hectic but abundant globe of cities into the inside house of the gallery,’ say the Courbots. ‘It is no more time just a query of style but of making objects with considerable evocative energy, consequently verging on the subject of sculpture.’
Couch by Maison Martin Margiela (left), ‘House Manner dresser’ by Jean Paul Gaultier (suitable)
(Impression credit: © Yann Bohac, courtesy of A1043)
‘“Fashion to Furniture” is an prospect to exhibit under a unifying theme a array of works that can be grouped with each other working with the expression furnishings, but which are produced in a radically distinctive way and stand out from mainstream structure,’ the Courbots keep on.
‘Indeed, is it definitely design at all? The designs originate in very different approaches and without questioning the use, production or convenience. But what can be pointed out is that, with no any noticeable intention, this home furnishings provides to the discipline of style and design by questioning its boundaries.’
‘Fashion to Furniture’ operates from 1 April – Might 6, 2023 at A1043, Paris.
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