Dear Shaded Viewers,
Arnhem Mode Biennale,Day 2.
After breakfast I ran into Asi from Iceland and his friend. Asi had participated in the illustration exhibit curated by Piet Paris.
By the time that I finished writing to you I had already missed a good part of the international symposium on Fashion and Accessories and asked for a driver to take me to the Kroller-Muller Museum. The museum is an hour away from my hotel in a beautiful forrest with a sculpture garden.
Jose Teunissen, professor of Fashion Design, ArtEZ Modelectoraat and author of Fashion & Accessories
Jose Teunissen spoke about why accessories are so important in the fashion world today and also presented her book. I met her later for dinner and had a look at her wonderful book which is published by Terra Lannoo Uitgeverij/ArtEZ Press. It is pretty impressive. I might add that Jose was the Fashion and Costume curator at the Centraal Museum Utrecht and was a great support of Viktor & Rolf from their beginning and helped support them by purchasing pieces from their collection for the museum.
Clare Sauro, the head of the Accessory Collection of the FIT Museum spoke about Fashion & Accessories.
Clare Sauro
Other speakers included Naomi Filmer who presents her conceptual and catwalk designs for Chalayan and McQueen among others. She spoke about how the catwalk pieces differ from her commercial work for a brand name such as Swarovski.
David Shah, an associate professor, ArtEZ spoke about the future of luxury and accessories in today’s enviornment. He also is a trend watcher, fashion designer and magazine publisher and knows everything about CHinese horoscopes. He is a rabbit.
The Shoplifter family about to check on the work of the Triumph of Vanity and Prisoner of Vanity carts
Artist Shoplifter presented her work and spoke about the importance of hair in fashion and art. I really wish that I had been there… Shoplifter is Hrafnhildur Armadottir, has created incredible hair sculptures for Bjork. For the Arnhem Biennale Shoplifter has created two carts for the parade and she will be Triumph of Vanity pulling the cart Prisoner of Vanity. Voin Voin will be the Prisioner.
Luca Marchetti on the left and Shoplifter on the right at the symposium dinner
Virginie Viallon is a linguist who spoke about the smell of fashion and Luca Marchetti, mosign; IFM; CELSA-Sorbonne University sppoke about accessories: Victims of banality.
After a round table discussion multi-disciplinarian (fashion designer, musician and artist) Henrik Vibskov, gave a perfomance.
While all that was going on, I called the driver to take me to the opening of Happy Fashion Photography at the Kroller-Muller Museum.
I originally thought that I could go to the opening and then catch the end of the symposium but after sitting in the car for an hour I started to wonder if I was going to the right place. For some reason I thought that the museum was in the Arnhem and in fact it was not.
Elle Verhagen/Carmen Freudenthal
Happy Fashion photography contains the work of an old friend of mine, Elle Verhagen/Carmen Freudenthal. Elle and Carmen’s theme is “We use/abuse the contemporary visual idiom. THey have been shooting together since l988. Freudenthal/Verhagen have collaborated intensively with Bernhard Willhelm on his look books since 2000.
Elle Verhagen/Carmen Freudenthal played a little trick on the public as people believed this woman to be real. Every once in a while her mobile phone would ring. I must admit that when I first saw her head in the window I did believe that she was real.
Anuschka Bloomers and Niels Schumm’s Happy House surrounded by hypr realistic portraits
Anuschka Bloomers and Niels Schumm had everyone laughing with their happy house and all the images of the many stages of Niels life. The photography duo both born in 1969 excel in ‘normal’ people portraits. They often photograph their subjects against white backdrops and in locations such as living rooms and bedrooms.
Melonie Bonojo
Melonie Bonojo showed humans morphed into absurd sculptures
Maurice Scheltens
Maurice Scheltens showed his sylised and provocative still lives.
Marc L.Z. Kwakman’s beautiful niece
Laird Borrelli, Marc L.X. Kwakman and Piet Paris in the garden of the museum. Laird is getting married in July and Marc and Piet were planning their route to Sweden so that they can share in the celebration. Laird will be wearing vintage white. She is also working on her 5th book.
Leaving I ran into Viviane Sassen and a friend.
I wish that I had taken a photo of this but a sweet old deaf couple were posing next to this statue. The man was in a wheel chair but he stood up for the photo . They were so in love and full of joy and they asked Laird if she could take a photo of them next to the statue. I cannot tell you what a sweet moment that was.
Piet and Marc outside the museum and the statue without the lovely old deaf couple embracing it.
Next stop was the opening of Anouk Kruithof. Anouk worked with Jaap Scheeren on a book, the Black Hole about depression. She showed some images from that series and also more fictional ones on fear. I liked the story she told me about the person with the toilet paper, the patients are not allowed any sharp objects because of obvious reasons so sometimes when they get really upset they throw around all of the toilet paper as was the case in this image. The image on the right is reality, the image with the antennas is an expression of fear and highly sensitive nerve endings. I asked Anouk how it was that she deals with such dark topics like depression and fear and she told me that as a child she visited her grandmother who spent her life living in a mental hospital and the memories were quite intense.
Anouk Kruithof
Anouk Kurithof and Jaap Scheeren celebrating both Anouk’s opening and her 26th birthday
Henrik called me while I was at the Gallery which by the way will transform into a boutique selling exclusively Dutch designers. Jaap walked me over to the Wonder food resto where I was to meet up with Henrik and the rest of the symposium team.
Jaap and Henrik, my two body guards
Dinner was very Alice in Wonderland, Wonder food on the menu for the entire month of June in celebration of the Arnhem Happy Fashion Biennale. Henrik was starving because we did not have any dinner the night before and he was not so sure how funny the size of the bread was.
Henrik is one of the sweetest, happiest guys you would ever want to meet so Clare and I asked him to portray mean and arrogant. It was hard not to laugh.
Henrik will be showing his collection in Paris on 29 June, he also will be doing the Copenhagen Jazz Festival offical poster done as a handmade linoleum block print. Henrik is collaborating with the Noovo Festival for Contemporary Fashion and Photography in Santiago de Compostela from 1-4 November.
We took a little walk after dinner and then the car took us back to our respective hotels. I will report back to you when I return to Arnhem for You Wear it Well festival and all of the festivities on the 23 and 24th of June. Visit the Arnhem Biennale website for more details.
Later,
Diane
