Standing at the stairs of the NRW Forum in Dusseldorf, I heard from the Hofpark the echo of the voice of an excited young woman saying to her friend: “Look at her, she has a Alaïa dress on!” Yes, I was wearing indeed an Alaïa dress, in honor of the outstanding couturier Azzedine Alaïa, whose exhibition I was visiting.
In the beautiful Hofpark in front of the NRW Forum Düsseldorf after visiting the Alaïa exhibition
For many years, I have been visiting the most important exhibitions of distinguished fashion designers: Versace at “Victoria and Albert Museum” in London, Armani at the “New National Gallery” in Berlin, Margiela at Munich’s “Haus der Kunst”, the “Fashion Museum” in Antwerp, the “Museo Salvatore Ferragamo” in Florence and so on. The exhibition “Alaïa. Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st century” had to become part of my long list. The graduated sculptor Alaïa is one of the most brilliant living fashion designers of the last decades, who has gone his very own way since he moved from his homeland Tunisia to Paris in 1957.
Sculptural Alaïa couture dresses from the Winter Collection 2011
On the same day, another current exhibition in Dusseldorf was on my agenda, the installation “in Orbit” by Tomás Saraceno at K21 Ständehaus (the modern art collection of the city of Düsseldorf). The surreal landscape made of of steel beneath the huge glass cupola of the museum was planned by the argentinean artist Saraceno over a period of three years in collaboration with engineers, architects and biologists.
A three-dimensional “spiderweb” made of 3 tons of steel and up to 300 kg heavy air-filled PVC “spheres”
Unfortunately, the installation was temporarily inaccessible because of maintanance works. Otherwise, I would have changed the Alaïa dress for a casual outfit and clamber high the installation, as it has been intended by the artist (http://www.tomassaraceno.com/). Hope my readers will have the possibility to enjoy this unique experience.