Weaving together threads of art, fashion and sustainability, this ambitious show is one of Copenhagen Contemporary's best offerings in years – here's what to expect
Copenhagen Contemporary’s upcoming exhibition is set to transport you into another sartorial dimension. Picture denim jeans heaped in one corner, a pair of suede cognac cowboy boots in another, and a sewing workshop for mending and creating just around the corner. Fashion photographs hang against tall white walls next to mannequins dressed in surrealist designs, and to top it all off, a flamboyant installation of pink balloons dances from the ceiling.
‘Beautiful Repair’ is one of the most highly-anticipated art exhibitions in the Nordics this year and for good reason. Not only does it provide a podium for a new generation of artists, it’s creating a much needed space for intergenerational rethinking about the relationship between clothes and the people who wear them.
Lee Mingwei's 'The Mending Project' at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
The idea for the exhibition emerged during a conversation between colleagues. “One day at the gallery, we were discussing the authorship of Gustave Flaubert, a French novelist whose work I love dearly. Clothes inhabit a key part in his work,” Director of Copenhagen Contemporary and Curator of ‘Beautiful Repair’ Marie Laurberg tells us. “Think of Frederic Leclerc, the protagonist in L'education Sentimentale who climbs the social ladder of Paris by theatrically dressing the part; or the fatal heroine Madame Bovary who is trapped in an unsatisfying marriage and is, as a woman, completely dependent on her not so talented husband. Her existential and social demise is described through her headless powershopping of luxury textiles and silk garments.”
The discussion reminded Laurberg of Lee Mingwei’s installation ‘The Mending Piece’ which she once experienced in Tokyo. Upon first glance, Lee’s interactive exhibit looks like a tailor's workshop, where he invites passersby to drop off damaged clothes for mending. But unlike a tailor who will try to disguise the damage, the mending is done by enhancing the original design through different colour threads as a way to celebrate and commemorate the act of repair. “Similar to Flaubert, but in a completely different way, Mingwei’s work reminds us how clothes are tied to our personal histories and social fabric,” says Laurberg.
Idaliina Friman. Photo: Juho Huttunen
Rasmus Myrup wearing his embroidered slime mold trousers.
ALL–IN's 'Collection N°2, “Miss France” Look 20'. Photo: Pascal Gambarte.
It’s a philosophy that runs throughout the show. “I coined the term 'aesthetic repair' when working on this exhibition,” Laurberg explains. “It describes an alternative type of mending that adds new meaning and dimension to a garment; it deepens its history and improves it.”
Minna Palmqvist, the multidisciplinary artist behind those pink balloons featured at the heart of ‘Beautiful Repair’, highlights the way the exhibition goes beyond mere clothing items. “For me, fashion is not primarily about actual garments, styling or trends. It is a world of its own, weaved into our daily lives, sometimes playfully, sometimes conflicting,” she tells us. By “discussing self-image as a kind of repair, our ingrained views on beauty, clothing and consumption” can change, she adds.
Minna Palmqvist's 'Intimately Social 4.09'.
Known for her captivating installations that lace art and fashion together, Palmqvist visually deconstructs fashion as a “game of rules, from excitement to disappointment, and a powerful tool in our daily expression of values and personality.” Through three different artworks that span over a 13 year period, her work encourages a new approach to buying, dressing and judging, by “questioning society's way of producing, consuming and living.”
Kristine Sehested-Blad’s experimental artwork also features in the exhibition. “I was asked by co-curator Dr. Ane Lynge Jorlén if I wanted to participate,” she says, “and I’m very happy and proud that my collection is considered relevant today, five years after it was born during my masters degree at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Design.” Liberation and creativity are central to Sehested-Blad’s practice, characteristics which are seemingly more relevant than ever in today’s fashion industry. This can be seen through her eclectic garments that bind together a collage of materials and colours. “My project was inspired by an art manifesto by American artist Claes Oldenburg, which describes and reflects the process of finding things on the street, picking up a banana peel, a piece of cart, wet and floppy and turning it into a sculpture and translating it into fashion.”
Kristine Sehested-Blad. Photo: Fryd Frydendahl.
Photo: Fryd Frydendahl.
Photo: Fryd Frydendahl.
The artist invites us into a world where mending and repair is idealised through its ability to create something desirable. “Desirability is very essential when trying to make things sustainable because if no one wants it we haven’t made a difference,” Sehested-Blad explains, adding a rallying cry for the exhibition: “Right now, the readers of this article are probably touching small luminous screens. I encourage them to visit the exhibition and get their hands messy with threads, textiles, yarn and more, to experience clothes from a new perspective.” Well, there you have it – and who are we to say disappoint?
'Beautiful Repair' is at Copenhagen Contemporary from February 1 until September 3.