A View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
After stops in Hong Kong and Tokyo (as covered by AO here), the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion has arrived in New York. The itinerant art exhibit was commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld, the ubiquitous link between the art and fashion worlds, and was designed by Zaha Hadid, a Pritzker Prize winner and one of today’s foremost architects. The pavilion, whose design has most often been compared to a spacecraft’s, is set in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, offering a stark contrast to the park’s landscape through Hadid’s compelling use of smooth, white contours that resemble canvas–but are actually made of steel. Inside the installation, 20 artists display works inspired by Chanel’s coveted, iconic quilted handbag on a chain, also known as the 2.55. Admission to the exhibit is free by making a reservation on-site.
Chanel: Mobile Art
Zaha Hadid: Architect’s Website
A 7,500-Square-Foot Ad for Chanel, With an Artistic Mission [New York Times]
Art and Commerce Canoodling in Central Park [New York Times]
Chanel’s Purse Show Lands in New York With Curves by Zaha Hadid [Bloomberg]
Video: Inside the Chanel Mobile Art Exhibit! [New York Magazine]
FALL GLAMOUR IN NEW YORK [Artnet Magazine]
Karl Called [Park Avenue Peerage]
Chanel Mobile Art Container Lands in Central Park [Unbeige]
A Conceptual View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
Zaha Hadid was specifically chosen to design the structure, due to her avowed aversion to right angles–a fact that is very evident in the design of the exhibit. Although it is temporary, the structure holds the distinction of being Hadid’s first building in New York. The architect has described it as “an entire landscape for the art work, rather than just an exhibition space. For this pavilion, we explored the organic forms evident in spiraling seashells. This system of organization and growth is among the most frequent in nature and offers an appropriate expansion towards its circumference, giving generous public areas at the entrance of the pavilion to interact with the local site conditions in each city.” (via Unbeige)
A View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid
A View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via The New York Times
A View of the Interior at the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
The artists commissioned for the traveling exhibit come from around the world, and include Lee Bul (South Korea), Sophie Calle (France), Blue Noses (Russia), Subodh Gupta (India) and Sylvie Fleury (Switzerland), among others. They were selected by Fabrice Bousteau, editor of Beaux Arts magazine, and include sculpture, photographs, videos and installations.
A View of the Interior at the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, The New York Times
A View of the Interior at the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
A View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
CHANEL MOBILE ART PAVILION
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park
through November 9th, 2008
