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When Karl Lagerfeld asked Zaha Hadid to design a nomadic museum, the result was a transportable white pavilion forming a shell for commissioned artworks
After its first landing in Hong Kong, Zaha Hadid's Mobile Art pavilion opens in Tokyo in May on the second leg of its itinerant tour.
"All department stores will become museums and all museums will become department stores." This was one of the predictive musings of Andy Warhol in his book "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again)." Today, as department stores and luxury fashion houses compete to open memorable exhibitions in their own gallery spaces, Chanel has upped the ante by creating a nomadic museum designed by Zaha Hadid. The Mobile Art project is the brainchild of Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's creative director, and it opened in Hong Kong in late February. Some 20 international artists, selected by Fabrice Bousteau, editor of Beaux Arts magazine in France, were asked to create artworks inspired by Chanel's iconic "2.55" quilted bag, designed by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1955.
Hadid's curving white pavilion – reminiscent of a flying saucer – is characteristic of her sleek, fluid design aesthetic. Positioned on a parking lot rooftop in Hong Kong's Central Business District, it contrasted with the verticality of towering high-rises by the likes of I.M. Pei and Norman Foster. After a six-week stay, Hadid's structure has been disassembled for Mobile Art's voyage to Tokyo in May, followed by New York in September, London in June 2009, Moscow in September 2009 and Paris in February 2010. The structure, measuring 700 square meters or 7,500 square feet, is composed of 700 pieces. For transportation, the pieces are stored in 56 containers and take two weeks to be reconstructed.
"I called Zaha Hadid three years ago and explained my idea to her," recalls Lagerfeld. "She told me that her final-year project during her studies was a mobile museum. Eight days later, we had the project. The plans were conceived with the help of computers, but I also saw her dazzling formal drawings. In 20 years, this architect has swept away the horrors of the Bauhaus and changed the architectural landscape of the 21st century. Like me, she is obsessed by perfection and has a vision that she holds on to."
Hadid describes her shiny, UFO-like structure as "a kind of loop." As she says, "You enter and exit from the same point. You move in a loop through all the exhibits like a kind of spiral." Recalling how she first encountered Lagerfeld, she adds, "Karl and myself always bumped into each other in the lobby of the Mercer Hotel in New York, and I never thought the result of this accidental meeting would be this project."
Mobile Art, which is free to visit and features an audioguide by Jeanne Moreau on MP3 players, houses multimedia installations. The Japanese artist Tabaimo has created "At the Bottom," which invites visitors to climb up some steps and peer down a well, the walls of which are covered with seemingly floating, animated objects alluding to the fantasies of Chanel's customers. "I think Tabaimo's well is my favorite work," enthuses Lagerfeld. "With her infantine images, she plays with emptiness and fullness, regret and hope. This work is sublime."
Daniel Buren has used his 8.7 cm blue and white stripes to create a walk-in, tent-like space, while the Blue Noses, a humorous Siberian duo, have made "Fifty Years After Our Common Era or Handbags' Revolt." It features big brown boxes containing projections of nude female bodies, such as one woman hitting another with a red Chanel bag. A touch of violence also enters Nobuyoshi Araki's film of a woman tied up in chains from Chanel's handbags. Curiously, Lagerfeld describes the "hardcore and bondage side of Araki's sumptuous photographs" as being "perfect" for Chanel.
Yet the most provocative exhibit is "Jesus, Love and 2 Skin Bags" by Wim Delvoye. It comprises two tattooed, stuffed pigs and matching purses made from tattooed pigskin. The Belgian artist has a pig farm just outside Beijing where some 20 pigs have tattoos, designed by Delvoye, executed all down their backs. The tattoos are enhanced each week while the pigs are under a mild sedative.
Paying homage to Chanel's history, the Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich has created "The Sidewalk." It shows scenes from the rue Cambon, where Coco Chanel founded her first store in 1910 and which is still home to the company's headquarters, reflected in pavement puddles. And the Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury has made an enormous pink velvet Chanel bag that serves as a sofa and is complete with a Chanel compact. There are also a "wishing tree" by Yoko Ono, a wall of pictures about the handbag manufacturing process by Stephen Shore, and works by, among others, Lee Bul, Subodh Gupta and Yang Fudong.
However, the idea of an itinerant museum is not actually new. Indeed, the Mobile Art project recalls The Nomadic Museum, designed by Shigeru Ban, which housed Gregory Colbert's show "Ashes and Snow." And the decision to commission artworks inspired by a handbag echoes a similarly themed exhibition, titled "Icons," at Espace Louis Vuitton. Back in 2006, the Louis Vuitton gallery in Paris asked nine artists, designers and architects – including Hadid and Fleury – to create works inspired by nine of its handbags. Both shows aimed to highlight aspects of the brands' histories and products through pieces created by high-profile artists, securing column inches and publicity.
Indeed, the New York Times has described Mobile Art as feeling "like a very elaborate Chanel commercial." But it's also an adventurous, collaborative initiative about the related worlds of art, fashion and architecture.