Art and fashion: discuss
The Royal Academy is hosting a panel discussion exploring the contribution that both art and fashion make to artistic innovation and creative expression. The panel includes curator Oriole Cullen, Professor Annamari Vänskä and artist Ehryn Torrell and will ask; Who are the artists sitting on the intersection of both fields? What is the relationship between fashion and art? Are there benefits and negatives of the two fields being associated? To what extent are these two creative industries linked?
The panel will look at the traditional partnerships between luxury fashion brands and artists (such as Elsa Schapiarelli x Salvador Dalí or Longchamp x Tracey Emin RA), to contemporary genre-crossing collaborations, where artists are on the fringes of both disciplines, and discuss what the future of fashion and art collaborations will look like.
The topic springboards from a current exhibition at the RA: Helene Schjerfbeck and the artist’s interest in fashion magazines and style. Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) is a Finnish national icon. From her early naturalistic style – honed during her studies in France – to her highly abstracted self-portraits, this exhibition will present Schjerfbeck for the first time to UK audiences.
Through over 60 portraits, landscapes and still lifes, this long-overdue survey traces the evolution of her remarkable career. Among the highlights will be a sequence of self-portraits, which demonstrate Schjerfbeck’s lifelong fascination with the physical and psychological process of ageing. In the age of the selfie, her engagement with masks and masquerade – the superficial appearance we present to the world and what lies beneath – is more relevant than ever.
Oriole Cullen is curator of Modern Fashion and Textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She also oversees the Museum’s Fashion in Motion programme working with contemporary fashion designers to stage a series of live fashion events held within the Museum.
For information about the panel discussion visit www.royalacademy.org.uk