Those Scar Cymbals

A DEEP VIBRATIONAL HUM FILLS THE MAIN HALL OF THE ZABLUDOWICZ COLLECTION, a former methodist chapel in North London. At the chancel is a glass house of sorts, aglow in LED, with plywood ladders leading up to each of its four stories. At the center of the room, a platform resembling a brain is covered in fine, white sand. There is paint smeared on the walls.

Medium density fibreboard encase Kaoss pads and speakers at the back of the room. An acrylic panel rises from it. From here comes the vibrational hum, turned on and off by models loitering about. Their skin is painted in natural pigments including turmeric, coffee and clay, which stain their surroundings upon contact; an "inescapable residue of touch" rendering acrylic surfaces opaque over time.

Scar Cymbals is Donna Huanca's first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom. The installation-performance hybrid features elements from her exploration of the surfaces of identity, as well as the interface between bodies and objects. While showcasing Huanca's unique visual aesthetic, Scar Cymbals is primarily sensual, at the same time sacramental, with sculptures that respond to the chapel's architecture, and daily performances that reference the functions of the skin.

Catch the show for a neon-stained meditation-sensation challenging your instinctive reaction to flesh.

Scar Cymbals by Donna Huanca at the Zabludowicz Collection, zabludowiczcollection.com Photos by Lady San Pedro and Jaime Sese.

Those Interlocking Influences

INTERLOCKING THE INFLUENCES OF COCO CHANEL AND KARL LAGERFELD, Mademoiselle Privé was described by The Guardian as "less a retrospective of a long-dead designer than an exhibition about how Karl Lagerfeld invented the character Coco Chanel as we think of her today." Indeed, the exhibit combined history and imagination in presenting the origins and manifestations of Chanel's codes.

There were rooms dedicated to fragrance, fabric, film and ephemera, as well as workshops for embroidery with Lesage, feather and flower making with Lemarié, and olfactive enlightenment through the legendary Chanel N°5. My favorite of the rooms was the jardin à la française, which featured interlocking C-shaped pathways curving through real hedges.

With only a few pieces remaining from the original Bijoux de Diamants collection designed by Coco Chanel herself, the entire jewelry line was recreated for the exhibit and worn in portraits by celebrities including Julianne Moore, Vanessa Paradis, Kristen Stewart and Lily-Rose Depp. Also replicated was the famed mirrored staircase from which Coco Chanel secretly watched her fashion show audiences. The rest of her Rue Cambon apartment could be visited virtually through the Mademoiselle Privé app.

To most of the world, Chanel is a sphere one could only peer into through pictures and videos. The exhibit at Saatchi Gallery was a delightfully accessible way to "C the World" built in turns by Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld. Although taking its title from the "Mademoiselle Privé" sign Coco hung on the door of her atelier to work undisturbed, the exhibit was anything but unwelcoming. Chanel CEO Bruno Pavlovsky affirmed: "We felt it was a good time for the brand to give away some secrets."

Mademoiselle Privé at the Saatchi Gallery, October 13 - November 1, 2015. mademoiselleprive.chanel.com Photos by Lady San Pedro and Jaime Sese.

MADEMOISELLE PRIVÉ IS CHAPTER THREE OF CHRISTMAS TRIO:
A THREE-PART STORY FEATURING SOME OF LONDON'S BIGGEST AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS.

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That Heavy Art

90 TONS OF REBAR STACKED IN UNDULATING FASHION recall seismic waves. On each side of the room stretch a list of names: 5,000 students whose lives had been taken by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. From the rubble where the poorly-built school had collapsed, Ai Weiwei and his team collected mangled steel rods, straightening each one by hand, and assembling them into a field of rusting metal. The installation, entitled Straight, is peaceful, poignant and powerful. It commemorates the lives lost while presenting a symbolic act of making what's crooked straight again.

Such is the nature of Ai Weiwei's art, with over two decades of it brought together for a first major UK exhibition. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Ai Weiwei works with readymade objects to create, assemble or simply present challenging themes through the condition of Chinese life. Souvenir of Shanghai is made with concrete, brick and woodwork taken from the site where the artist's studio was demolished by authorities in 2011. Tree comprises bolted parts of different trees, alluding to the modern Chinese nation of ethnically diverse groups. Bicycle Chandelier illustrates the bike's fallen/risen status as a chief mode of transport now a luxury afforded only by a few.

The works inspire awe for their scale and shock value; the exhibit also shows pieces like Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, which features three consecutive photographs of the artist dropping an urn, possibly from the Han Dynasty. But past the striking first impressions, the artworks provoke thought or inspiration. "The message should be carried through knowledge, not just visual." explained Ai Weiwei, well-known to have been many times held or beaten by authorities for expressing ardent, provocative messages.

Appropriately so, there was no social media censorship at the exhibition. Where museums and galleries nowadays tend to prohibit the social sharing of exhibit assets, Ai Weiwei's art is hashtag friendly. "In today’s condition, I do not think that anybody can stop the exchange of ideas." says the artist.

With ideas of all sorts cluttering online and offline spaces, the challenge for most of us is not perhaps in exchanging ideas, but in dedicating more energy towards ideas worth exchanging.

Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy of Arts, September 19 - December 13, 2015. royalacademy.org.uk Photos by Lady San Pedro.

AI WEIWEI IS CHAPTER TWO OF CHRISTMAS TRIO:
A THREE-PART STORY FEATURING SOME OF LONDON'S BIGGEST AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS.

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That Past, Present, Future

IT'S THE PAST. IT'S THE PRESENT. IT'S THE FUTURE. Louis Vuitton Series 3 - Past, Present, Future brought together all three in an immersive exhibition reinterpreting the fashion show. Third in artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière's Series installations, the exhibit showcased the influences and creative process behind the house's Autumn-Winter 2015 collection.

Craftsmen in film, and in person, meticulously created luxurious leather goods. Models put on an infinite runway show on multiple screens. 3D-printed "avatars" melded out of walls with eye candy accessories. It's thematic how past, present and future were assembled in the exhibit. Past existed in heritage influences and the creative process, present manifested through a collection currently available in-store, and future radiated through technology, all stamped with the Louis Vuitton savoir faire.

"This isn't about celebrating the heritage of Louis Vuitton - we've done that and we do that but it's not what the exhibition is about." explained Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke. "This isn't a Vuitton lesson. I just want them to feel it."

The feeling was definitely there, of curiosity and desire. Watching "Artists' Hands" construct the petite malle felt strangely hypnotic, as did watching the models walk on loop like life-sized GIFs. The 13-room journey through Series 3 transcended many aspects of the fashion show, from schedule to duration and accessibility. Where traditional shows offer short previews to a limited audience, months before a collection is available, the exhibit provided the public a month-long presentation of what they can actually purchase in the present.

Perhaps "the future" also figures in the exhibit's transendence of a fashion show. It's not something that whizzes by in minutes, captured by a hashtagging front row. We're not seeing it through our mobile phones while sitting in a bus or loitering in bed. "In this digital era, fashion shows are diffused online and immediately accessible for the public." Points out Ghesquière. "But it takes more than that to feel the ambiance and share the intense creativity, energy and emotion around one show."

Besides, you can't taste food off a screen. Those light bites on that Louis Vuitton menu were actually quite yum. #onetrackmind

Louis Vuitton Series 3 - Past, Present, Future at 180 Strand, September 21 - October 18, 2015. uk.louisvuitton.com Photos by Lady San Pedro.

LOUIS VUITTON SERIES 3 IS CHAPTER ONE OF CHRISTMAS TRIO:
A THREE-PART STORY FEATURING SOME OF LONDON'S BIGGEST AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS.

VIEW ALL STORIES