DIOR TALKS – Feminist Art
Welcome to the Dior Talks series themed around the 5th edition of Dior Lady Art and hosted by Paris-based journalist Katya Foreman. For this year’s event, ten artists and collectives from around the world have participated in a game of metamorphosis by rendering the iconic Lady Dior handbag as a unique piece of art.
“Hacking reality” is the motto of Recycle Group’s Georgy Kuznetsov and Andrey Blokhin, who in this episode discuss transposing the Lady Dior into the digital era.
The Russian artistic duo is known for deconstructing pillars of artistic culture, like a statue from antiquity or in this case the Lady Dior bag, and bringing them back to life in the virtual world, juxtaposing classical and contemporary iconography. Longtime collaborators of Dior, the fusional creatives have been friends since they were kids, hanging out in their parents’ art studios in early post-Soviet artist residencies.
In their new interpretation of the House icon, the bag’s classical quilted cannage motif is distorted into a hypnotic trompe-l’œil vortex and waves recalling glitches or a Snapchat filter, and the letter charms are morphed and twisted.
The eyelets are also altered, and the charms appear to be entirely swallowed by the whirlwind forms, seemingly projecting the bag into the digital realm. “We liked the idea of combining two realities,” explains Blokhin of a fascinating creative vision positioned on reality’s final frontiers.
Discover Chris Soal’s creations : https://youtu.be/K5shObQUjoA
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Step inside the contemporary Dior mind with ‘Dior Talks’, a series of podcasts aimed at bringing together both the people who directly shape the creative direction of the House and those whose artistic, cultural or intellectual impact influence its narrative.
The first series, launching March 8, 2020, focuses on the subject of feminist art. For Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of the Women’s collections, the overlap between feminist theory and art has proved an essential element of her focus since her 2016 arrival at Dior. It has offered her a unique opportunity to express herself and her core beliefs through the prism of fashion, to engage with a whole new generation, and, by instigating this empowered dialogue, to give an amplified voice to a number of women artists and writers with whom she has collaborated.
With ‘Dior Talks’, those voices can be heard directly, as, starting with Maria Grazia Chiuri, a number of artists, curators and writers – from Judy Chicago to Tracey Emin and Paola Ugolini – discuss their work, their connections to the House, and what feminist art really means to them. This series will be hosted by Katy Hessel, a London-based writer, curator and art historian.
