Exclusive interview with Tilda Swinton as the Serpentine Gallery partners with Pringle of Scotland

Pringle of Scotland is one of the oldest names in the Scottish borders, the birthplace of the British knitwear industry. Founded in 1815 by Robert Pringle, the company began as a manufacturer of hoisery and underwear. It has been knitting cashmere since the 1870s and was one of the first brands to introduce knitwear as outerwear in the early 1900s.

In March 2000, a new chapter began for the company when a brand vision and key strategies were put in place to take the business into the international luxury arena. Part of this regeneration process is the hiring of a new face, the very talented and fascinating Tilda Swinton. This year is the company's 195's birthday.

On the occasion of another anniversary, the Serpentine Gallery's 40th anniversary, Pringle of Scotland is supporting the Institution by sponsoring the Gallery's Education and public programmes. 

This morning, I attended the press conference and had the chance to interview with the very inspiring Tilda. I have spoken about Pringle and Tilda in the past (and how she reminds me of David Bowie) so I am very proud to feature the interview on this blog for you:






She conceived and performed at the Serpentine Gallery in 1995 in an installation created by Cornelia Parker. She slept in a glass case in the gallery for eight hours each day, for seven days. She was more recently featured in the short ad movie made by Ryan McGinley for Pringle (please have a look at my previous post http://artisnotdead.blogspot.com/search/label/Pringle%20of%20Scotland%3A%20Tilda%20Swinton%20is%20beautiful).

For this show, more Scottish artists have been selected by Julia Peyton-Jones, Director and my friend Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Gallery: Douglas Gordon, David Shrigley, Luke Fowler, Alasdair Gray and Franz Ferdinand amongst others.

I have got a special connection with Scotland so you can imagine how happy I was to be able to discuss the Scottish heritage and the fantastic result of this collaboration between Pringle and the Serpentine Gallery with her. It was as if everything had come full circle. Another proof that there's no boundaries between fashion and art...

Images have copyrights - please don't use them without permission.

More info on: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/ and http://www.pringleofscotland.com/

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 designed by Frank Gehry

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 designed by Frank Gehry



20 July – 19 October


The Serpentine is really active this summer. First there was Richard Prince and an exhibition that attracted a lot of celebrities, especially at the glamourous dinner organised by LVMH the night before the opening for press and some vips. Apparently Radiohead attended, and I saw myself Valentino...


In fact the construction work has begun on the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008, which will give England the first built project by legendary architect Frank Gehry, opening 20 July. Gehry and his team took inspiration for this year’s Pavilion from a fascinating variety of sources including the elaborate wooden catapults designed by Leonardo da Vinci as well as the striped walls of summer beach huts. Part-amphitheatre, part-promenade, these seemingly random elements will make a transformative place for reflection and relaxation by day, and discussion and performance by night.





Frank Gehry said: "The Pavilion is designed as a wooden timber structure that acts as an urban street running from the park to the existing Gallery. Inside the Pavilion, glass canopies are hung from the wooden structure to protect the interior from wind and rain and provide for shade during sunny days. The Pavilion is much like an amphitheatre, designed to serve as a place for live events, music, performance, discussion and debate. As the visitor walks through the Pavilion they have access to terraced seating on both sides of the urban street. In addition to the terraced seating there are two elevated seating pods, which are accessed around the perimeter of the Pavilion. These pods serve as visual markers enclosing the street and can be used as stages, private viewing platforms and dining areas."


Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director said: "It is an exciting moment that work has begun on Frank Gehry’s visionary scheme. His Pavilion is remarkable and will be a landmark for London this summer."


The Pavilion will be the architect’s first built structure in England. He is collaborating for the first time with his son Samuel Gehry. Since 2001, Peter Rogers, Director of Stanhope, has donated his expertise to all aspects of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions and he continues to play a major role. The Pavilion is a fully accessible public space in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens, attracting up to 250,000 visitors every Summer and is accompanied by an ambitious programme of public talks and events.


To learn more: www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/03/forthcoming_summer_2008serpent.html

Richard Prince at Serpentine

"I always tell the truth about what I do. But no one believes me"- Richard Prince

Richard Prince: Continuation 26 June - 7 September 2008


Richard Prince (born 1949) is one of the world’s most celebrated artists and artistic innovators.
Prince came to prominence in the 1980s through his celebrated series such as Cowboys, Jokes and Hoods, which appropriate images from magazines, popular culture and pulp fiction to create new photographs, sculptures and paintings that respond to ideas about American identity and consumerism. These works have been critical in challenging ideas of authorship and raising questions about the value of the ‘unique’ artwork.


Prince is, himself, a voracious collector of art, furniture, memorabilia and books, which he houses in a group of buildings alongside his own artworks. His exhibition at the Serpentine is a direct dialogue with his spaces, mirroring the installation of Prince’s work in his own buildings as well as responding to the Serpentine’s unique scale and location. Prince’s diverse collection ranges from books and artworks by artists and writers to classic American ‘muscle cars’. Paintings, photographs and sculptures spanning Prince’s 30-year career are featured at the Serpentine, including new work created especially for this exhibition.


Richard Prince: Continuation follows his recent retrospective, Spiritual America, organised by the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, and is curated by Richard Prince and the Serpentine Gallery.


I have to say that this exhibition is a highlight of this summer's programme of exhibitions and follows the Gagosian's show. A nurse painting can also be seen at Sotheby's a few weeks ago for the Impressionist and Modern Art sale.


The private view for the event was quite interesting as I bumped into Mario Testino, Valentino, and François Pinault (nice rime)... yes I think I really like Richard Prince, and not only because he collaborated with Marc Jacobs. The exhibition at the Serpentine is by the way sponsored by Vuitton.


http://www.serpentinegallery.org/

Anthony McCall was at Serpentine Gallery

copyright

One of the best exhibition ever, Anthony McCall was at Serpentine Gallery, now finished.

British artist Anthony McCall (born 1946) has a cross-disciplinary practice in which film, sculpture, installation, drawing and performance overlap. McCall was a key figure in the avant-garde London Film-makers Co-operative in the 1970s and his earliest films are documents of outdoor performances that were notable for their minimal use of the elements, most notably fire.

After moving to New York in 1973, McCall continued his fire performances and developed his ‘solid light’ film series, conceiving the now-legendary Line Describing a Cone, in 1973. These works are simple projections that strikingly emphasise the sculptural qualities of a beam of light. In darkened, haze-filled rooms, the projections create an illusion of three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves and flat planes that gradually expand, contract or sweep through space. In these works, the artist sought to deconstruct cinema by reducing film to its principle components of time and light and removing the screen entirely as the prescribed surface for projection. The works also shift the relationship of the audience to film, as viewers become participants, their bodies intersecting and modifying the transitory forms.

Anthony McCall - Between You and I 2006

At the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from making art. Over 20 years later, he acquired a new dynamic and re-opened his ‘solid light’ series, this time using digital projectors rather than 16mm film. Through his involvement in expanding the notion of cinema, which enabled a more complex experience of projection, McCall has become a hero to a younger generation of artists working with film and installation.

A renewed interest in his work has resulted in many screenings of his individual projections at museums and galleries internationally, as well as inclusion in major group exhibitions, such as Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art, 1964-77, Whitney Museum, New York, 2001-02; X-Screen: The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, 2003-4; Expanded Cinema: Film as Spectacle, Event, Performance, Hartware Medien Kunstverein, Dortmund, 2004; Eyes, Lies and Illusions, Hayward Gallery, London, 2004; The Expanded Eye, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2006, and Projections: Beyond Cinematic Space, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2006-07.

His work is largely unknown to the wider British public and the Serpentine exhibition offers an overview of both the early and more recent works of this seminal practitioner. The exhibition also features previously unseen drawings, studies, scores, photographs and documents, predominantly from the artist’s own archive, that offer an insight into his working practice.
The exhibition is organised by the Serpentine Gallery, London, and presented in association with the Musée départemental d'art contemporain de Rochechouart, France.

To learn more: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/