“Forever Valentino,” the exhibition celebrating the maison’s legacy

“Forever Valentino,” the exhibition celebrating the maison’s legacy

Andrea Tuzio · 5 months ago · Style

On the occasion of Qatar Creates, the Qatar Museum and Maison Valentino present “Forever Valentino”, a major exhibition paying tribute to its founder Valentino Garavani and his priceless legacy of excellence in Haute Couture, yet to be discovered and rediscovered.

At M7, the design and innovation hub in Msheireb, Downtown Doha, “Forever Valentino”, an exploration of the Maison’s Haute Couture codes and a journey through Rome, Valentino’s home, the place where it all began and where his identity belongs, opened today-it will remain open to the public until April 1, 2023

The Maison’s largest exhibition to date, and its first ever presentation in the Middle East, comes to coincide with Valentino Garavani’s 90th birthday and the presentation of the Valentino Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2022 collection in the heart of Rome.
The exhibition is conceived as a vast overview of the history of the Maison, set in a setting that evokes the Eternal City, which has been Valentino’s home since its founding in 1959.

The exhibition builds a dreamlike image of the city of Rome, guiding viewers in and out of palaces, squares and courtyards, while allowing exclusive access to secluded and intimate spaces such as Valentino’s famous Ateliers, the Maison’s historical archives and the rehearsal lounges of the legendary Piazza Mignanelli headquarters.

The “Forever Valentino” exhibition chronicles a fast-paced city built as a collage of environments and experiences in which Valentino’s creations are displayed in constant dialogue with many of the sources of inspiration that stimulated the creativity of the founder and his successor and creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli

The exhibition composes an emotional dramaturgy inspired by capriccio, an 18th-century art form that combined disparate views of cities and architecture, reimagining them as fantastical landscapes of the mind. Conceived by Baroque geniuses such as Giovanni Antonio Canaletto and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the art of capriccio transformed Italy’s marvelous vistas into enchanted mirages, creating many of the icons and myths that still build perceptions of Italy both locally and internationally. Fashion itself is composed of whimsy: fantasies, inspirations, art, music, culture, all translated into fabric.

Featuring more than 200 Haute Couture and ready-to-wear Valentino pieces accompanied by accessories and objects, “Forever Valentino” weaves a picture of the city of Rome filled with private memories and precious discoveries from six decades of the Maison’s history, including rarely seen dresses designed for the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy and, most recently, Zendaya.
Rather than recontextualized within the walls of a museum, Valentino’s creations here evoke their own context: carrying with them traces of where they were created, they are discovered in their natural habitat.

The pieces are chosen instinctively, emotionally, evoking the joy of color, the dignity and grace of Romanesque architecture, the love sewn into every seam. Part of the history of fashion, culture and Rome, Valentino’s creations appear as an integral part of the heritage of the maison and its birthplace. 

Few brands have established as deep a connection with their city of origin as Valentino has with Rome, and in the work of Valentino Garavani’s successor, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Rome appears no longer as an exclusive emblem of opulence but as a vibrant, multicultural metropolis. 

“Forever Valentino” stages a pop-up, dreamlike vision of Rome, even more fascinating when viewed in Doha, a city where the past and the future meet at a dizzying speed. 

The exhibition is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the New Museum in New York, and fashion critic and author Alexander Fury, in close collaboration with Pierpaolo Piccioli.

“Forever Valentino,” the exhibition celebrating the maison’s legacy
Style
“Forever Valentino,” the exhibition celebrating the maison’s legacy
“Forever Valentino,” the exhibition celebrating the maison’s legacy
1 · 9
2 · 9
3 · 9
4 · 9
5 · 9
6 · 9
7 · 9
8 · 9
9 · 9
Isabella Ståhl has returned to the North

Isabella Ståhl has returned to the North

Tommaso Berra · 5 days ago · Photography

Isabella Ståhl is a Swedish photographer who found herself rediscovering the landscapes of her childhood after traveling all over the world, starting from Stockholm to New York, Paris and Berlin. The North represents the cardinal point from which she initially moved, returning once she honed her artistic maturity, which allowed her to look at the rural, melancholy landscapes of her childhood in a new light.
In Isabella Ståhl’s photos, nature with its vast fields and wild, untamed animals shrouded in fog, which also hides everything else in the landscape like a white blanket, dominates. The extraordinary loneliness of the compositions and the melancholy that enters straight into the viewers’ eyes are two of the main characteristics of the work of Ståhl, an established photographer who has collaborated with some of the most important international brands and publishers during her artistic career. Her ability is not only to be able to build a story behind the moments she chooses to shoot, but also to return like physical sensations of warmth, coldness, and chills that make everyone who stops to look at the photographs a protagonist.

Isabella Ståhl was recently a guest artist in the group exhibition ImageNation in New York, March 10-12, 2023, curated by Martin Vegas.

Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl | Collater.al
Isabella Ståhl has returned to the North
Photography
Isabella Ståhl has returned to the North
Isabella Ståhl has returned to the North
1 · 15
2 · 15
3 · 15
4 · 15
5 · 15
6 · 15
7 · 15
8 · 15
9 · 15
10 · 15
11 · 15
12 · 15
13 · 15
14 · 15
15 · 15
Cecilie Mengel’s photos are an inner dialogue

Cecilie Mengel’s photos are an inner dialogue

Tommaso Berra · 4 days ago · Photography

One only has to listen to the conversations that arise inside Cecilie Mengel‘s head to imagine how they might be represented photographically. The Danish artist and now resident in New York makes shots that are inner dialogues born from the stimuli she herself receives from her surroundings and the people with whom she experiences very everyday moments.
The result is an artistic production that is marked by a strong variety in subjects and settings, as well as in style, sometimes documentary, other times closer to a certain posed and theatrical photography. They range from shots stolen in the home during a conversation to details of a can of Heinz sauce found in the glove compartment of a cab, all reconstructing a common, everyday story.
Cecilie Mengel’s technique also reflects this same idea of variety. In fact, the artist combines digital and analog photography, in other cases post production adds graphic marks to the images. The lights are sometimes natural other times forcedly created with flash, creating a sense of the whole that is perhaps less homogeneous but rich in personal suggestions and recounts.

Cecilie Mengel was recently a guest artist in the group exhibition ImageNation in New York, March 10-12, 2023 curated by Martin Vegas.

Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel | Collater.al
Cecilie Mengel’s photos are an inner dialogue
Photography
Cecilie Mengel’s photos are an inner dialogue
Cecilie Mengel’s photos are an inner dialogue
1 · 13
2 · 13
3 · 13
4 · 13
5 · 13
6 · 13
7 · 13
8 · 13
9 · 13
10 · 13
11 · 13
12 · 13
13 · 13
Diego Dominici and the veil of Maya

Diego Dominici and the veil of Maya

Giorgia Massari · 4 days ago · Photography

A delicate, almost transparent and imperceptible veil floats before our eyes and filters reality, which becomes subjective and never absolute. The philosopher Schopenhauer called it “the veil of Maya,” that impediment that prohibits man from experiencing reality, that deludes us into thinking we know Truth. Photographer Diego Dominici places it between the viewer and his subjects, transforming it into the actual protagonist of the Atman and Red Clouds series. The figures – men and women – are trapped in the veil, struggling with it trying to escape, clinging tightly to it, trying to penetrate it; in other cases, instead, they welcome it, lying down and conforming to its persuading softness. The viewer is only allowed to catch a glimpse of the shapes of their naked bodies and their bones imprinted on the surface, in a dance of light and shadow that convey sensuality and loneliness at the same time.

Diego Dominici attempts to break the two-dimensionality of photography, creating two planes of depth: the one dictated by the fabric and its ripples and the one in which the subject is placed. The viewer’s eye is led to move continuously over the surface, trying to overcome it and thus reach the subject and its forms therefore, in other words, the Truth.
The analogy with human psychology is stated by the photographer who wants to “rip apart two-dimensionality to investigate the tangles of human interiority.” As in his shots, human beings can choose to be lulled by the veil of illusion, be caressed by a fictitious reality and stand firm on their point of view, or they can choose to break it, thus reaching the other side and look at reality from another perspective. The fabric, or rather the veil, becomes the emblem of relational barriers, those obstacles that come between us and others, which prevent us from understanding the motives of others and create unbridgeable distances. At the same time, the veil becomes part of us, a kind of wrapping that envelops and shapes us, preventing us from going beyond it. But, as Schopenhauer said, the veil of Maya must be torn down, ripped open like a Fountain’s canvas, human must shed the envelope like a snake changing its skin, in order to open up to the other. After all, what is love if not “the cancellation of the ego, the collapse of all conscious discrimination and the renunciation of all methodical choice?” said Salvador Dali in My Secret Life. Diego Dominici’s works thus invite deep intimate reflection but, thanks to his carefully curated aesthetics, they can also simply satisfy the eye and appear as sensual works, in which the veil becomes a prelude to intimate pleasure.

Diego Dominici | Collater.al
Diego Dominici and the veil of Maya
Photography
Diego Dominici and the veil of Maya
Diego Dominici and the veil of Maya
1 · 8
2 · 8
3 · 8
4 · 8
5 · 8
6 · 8
7 · 8
8 · 8
6 photos to discover the magic of Rodney Smith

6 photos to discover the magic of Rodney Smith

Tommaso Berra · 1 day ago · Photography

He was first a great teacher, educator and essayist, then also a great photographer, who linked his career to portraiture and later to the world of fashion. Over the course of his career Rodney Smith (1947-2016) depicted meticulously constructed, humorous, paradoxical, romantic and funny scenes, which will now be collected in a volume entitled “Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith,” containing more than two hundred photographs – some previously unpublished – just acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum.
The project and the Getty acquisition trace a creative trajectory that has made fantasy and elegance a true photographic strand. Viewers are invited to activate a comparison with the Surrealist René Magritte, the painter who comes closest to Rodney Smith in themes and subject matter, as Getty Museum curator Paul Martineau describes Smith: “…like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, his photographs lead us down the rabbit hole to a fantastical place that is just beyond our reach but one intended to inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.

Collater.al has selected six of Rodney Smith’s most beautiful photographs, A Leap of Faith, the impression is that of frames from a fantasy film or scenes from a great costume musical, with the protagonists dancing and kissing over the roof of a yellow New York taxi cab.

Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Figure 1 Twins in the Tree, Snedens Landing, New York, 1999 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Plate 41 Self-Portrait with Leslie, Siena, Italy, 1990 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Plate 86 A.J. Chasing Airplane, Orange County Airport, New York, 1998 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Plate 110 Reed Leaping Over Rooftop, New York, New York, 2007 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Plate 115 Wessel Looking Over the Balcony, Paris, France, 2007 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith | Collater.al
Plate 126 Edythe and Andrew Kissing on Top of Taxis, New York, New York, 2008 © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
6 photos to discover the magic of Rodney Smith
Photography
6 photos to discover the magic of Rodney Smith
6 photos to discover the magic of Rodney Smith
1 · 7
2 · 7
3 · 7
4 · 7
5 · 7
6 · 7
7 · 7