[ 20 January 2021, 12:36 p.m. CET ]
Review, English Version

VALENTINO: RE-SIGNIFY PART ONE SHANGHAI. The Power Station of Art presents the work of PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI in dialogue with the moods, motivations and enquiry of our time

Intallation view, VALENTINO: Re-Signify Part One: Shanghai, 2020, Power Station of Art, Shanghai. Courtesy of VALENTINO

From December 19th, 2020 to January 17th, 2021, the Power Station of Art in Shanghai presents the first chapter of Re-signification, a physical manifestation of Creative Director, PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI’s pragmatic and conceptual approach to defining VALENTINO today and in the future. The brand past and present merges with contemporary artistic and visual examination—from video art and photography to underground cinema and computer graphics. To understand specific connections is to realize the appropriation and re-contextualization of data, details, and the fragments of past experiences. It is the embrace of unexpected points of view on aesthetics, techniques, pre-existing languages, imagery, and so, epochs and styles attach and overlap. Connecting the work of PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI for VALENTINO to paradigms of research, the exhibition references heritage and present-day collections intertwined with eclectic and alternative art traces across two centuries, evoking the colors, forms and underlying structures of the Maison.

Curated by MARIUCCIA CASADIO and JACOPO BEDUSSI, the experience is organized in architectural space through a series of rooms and totems created by the innovative consultancy KENNEDY LONDON. The timeline of thought begins to unfold in a virtual tunnel filled with images acquired from the Maison’s historical archives which are then paired with transformations, organized and re-read, to create a new kind of archive. The journey continues into a world of botany and artisanal ability that showcases the aesthetic universe of the VALENTINO GARAVANI Atelier. Two galleries present antithetical explorations of the garden. CAO FEI’s prophetic Cosplayers looks to the future, amplifying a landscape to present an imaginative elsewhere, while QUAYOLA’s Jardins d’Été, captures a reality beyond our senses and pays homage to the past and the tradition of the landscapes CLAUDE MONET painted later in life. Venturing even further into the fundamental concepts of memory and archive, a selection of the cinematographer ROBBY MÜLLER’s Polaroid interpretations of hotel and motel rooms in 1970’s and 80’s America and Italy are projected at scale in the shape of a pentagon. Moving on, two totems make emotional statements about the past in connection with designs from the new VALENTINO Collezione Milano. In an interpretation of a library, the relationship between iconography and reference, signs, colors, and codes is reinforced when archives of the fashion house are juxtaposed with the work of PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI and expressions of pop culture tangential to the world of fashion, including historical clothing, scarf patterns from the 1960’s, images of the Diary campaign shot by PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI, examples of psychedelic Californian graphics by STANLEY MOUSE, and a comparison between the geometric exploration of stripes and maxi polka-dots and the work of SOLVE SUNDSBO. The research also draws a transoceanic parallel between the evolution of aesthetics and design in VALENTINO’s Italy with the revolutionary style of the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco. Next to the library is a piazza, inspired by Piazza del Popolo in Rome, where three dresses from the Maison’s Couture FW20-21 collection are immersed in reality, imparting all the poetic hypotheses and dreams that the clothes of Couture represent.

Moving forward in time, the Maison hovers between present and future in merging with the contemporary artistic practice of NICK KNIGHT through a film created expressly for the exhibition that projects his work directly onto the clothes, creating a transportive and virtual domain of the unimaginable. A studio space offers a deeper analysis of the Atelier collection and the symbol of the rose. The focus is the famous red dress with roses on the skirt designed by VALENTINO GARAVANI for the 1959 Haute Couture collection. Continuing on the theme, the video works by JONAS MEKAS and WEIRDCORE tell two opposite stories of the floral motif. MEKAS’ Flowers from the Online Diaries is organic, intimate, and filmed in an experimental but domestic cinematographic language. WEIRDCORE’s -0° is digital, computerized and not at all natural. The experience is one of interacting with two generations, and the space overall explores codes of romanticism and poetry, rejecting classical aesthetic imagery in favor of new associations and linguistic hypotheses. Finally, a dungeon combines classical Rome with underground culture represented by the raw, dark imagery of JACOPO BENASSI. The very last experience is dedicated to contemplation and decompression. Quotes from PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI on an LED strip offer interpretations of re-signification, and his voice fills the space as he reads them aloud.

Ultimately, what PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI offers is a way of being, of imagining, of dreaming. A language that is poetic and romantic, but also visually palpable. The creative director’s presentation makes this language comprehensible and open to all, inviting diverse and personal interpretations, all authentic because possible.

Text, CLAIRE COTRELL

@valentino #VALENTINORESIGNIFY #VALENTINO再诠

NICK KNIGHT, Of Grace and Light [Still], 2020. PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI in conversation with NICK KNIGHT, july 21s, 2020, Cinecittà, Rome. Valentino Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2020-2021. ©NICK KNIGHT. Courtesy of the artist

NICK KNIGHT, Of Grace and Light [Still], 2020. PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI in conversation with NICK KNIGHT, july 21s, 2020, Cinecittà, Rome. Valentino Haute Couture FallWinter 2020-2021. ©NICK KNIGHT. Courtesy of the artist

Intallation view, VALENTINO: Re-Signify Part One: Shanghai, 2020, Power Station of Art, Shanghai. Courtesy of VALENTINO

RACHEL ROSE, A Minute Ago [still], 2014. ©RACHEL ROSE. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London

QUAYOLA, Jardins d’Été [still], 2016. ©QUAYOLA. Courtesy of the artist

Intallation view, VALENTINO: Re-Signify Part One: Shanghai, 2020, Power Station of Art, Shanghai. Courtesy of VALENTINO

CAO FEI, Cosplayers [still], 2004. ©CAO FEI. Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers

WEIRDCORE, -0° [still], 2000. ©WEIRCORE. Courtesy of the artist

WEIRDCORE, -0° [still], 2000. ©WEIRCORE. Courtesy of the artist

Intallation view, VALENTINO: Re-Signify Part One: Shanghai, 2020, Power Station of Art, Shanghai. Courtesy of VALENTINO