Helmut Lang Shredded 6,000 Items Of His Archive For An Art Project

by Justin Fenner | 12:39 pm, July 14th, 2011

Put this tidbit away for the next time you have to have to answer the question, “Is fashion art?” Legendary designer and artist Helmut Lang has blown the remainder of his fashion archives to smithereens and put them back together to create a few sculptures.

Lang, who retired from fashion in 2005, is putting the “dozen stalactitelike pieces” on display at The Fireplace Project, a gallery in East Hampton, New York, later this month. Women’s Wear Daily reports that the exhibit, called Make It Hard, is supposed to represent Lang’s formal break from the fashion business. Over the past several years he’s been donating much of his archives to various fashion and art museums and collectors. The rest, as they say, is history.

According to writer and creative director Neville Wakefield, who is presenting the exhibition, Lang’s floor-to-ceiling columnar forms — made of scraps of fabrics, fur, feathers, leather, plastic, hair and metal from more than 25 years of fashion collections — erase the past and highlight “the transience of our creative endeavors.”

Lang’s minimalist, deconstructed work always seemed to examine the idea that fashion could be stripped down to its sparest parts and still be relevant. And how much more deconstructed could a garment get than being broken apart and remade into something that isn’t another garment? Still, it’s sad that Lang seems to be saying he’ll never, ever, ever come back to fashion, but we guess all good things really do have to come to an end.

[WWD]

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