Baku Magazine Issue 15 by Baku Magazine

LEYLA ALIYEVA, PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALAN GELATI.

Editor’s letter

pring is a time of rebirth, when my country and others in the region celebrate the festival of Novruz. The mountains become emblazoned with fruit blossom and wild fowers, and the traditional cuisine of Novruz is visually an art in itself, as you can see in our feature (page 100). The city of Baku is also enjoying a renaissance in the arts. We have a rising number of wonderful homegrown artists and the atmosphere of some of their studios has been beautifully captured in the fashion shoot on page 72. I have been directing much of my passion towards raising awareness of endangered species, not just in Azerbaijan but around the world. I was immensely proud of the efforts of the global artists and conservationists in the ‘Here Today…’ exhibition that took place in London (page 126). The show highlighted the plight of these species and it was gratifying to see the effect the exhibition had on its visitors. We will be displaying more of our conservation work at the Venice Biennale this year. I am delighted to have an interview in this issue with Okwui Enwezor, the eminent director of this edition of the Biennale – he is a fgure who has done much for art around the world. We also bring you the inside track on EXPO 2015 in Milan, fashion icon Giambattista Valli and global superstar will.i.am. I hope you enjoy our celebration of all that’s new and exciting in the world. Leyla Aliyeva Editor-in-Chief

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Contents SKETCHES PLAYING WITH FIRE

CULTURE FIX

There’s a fame that never goes out in the land of fre. It’s far from quiet in the exhibitions, fairs and festivals we’ve spotted for this spring.

ON THE RADAR

Theo Danjuma is channelling his passion for collecting to put African contemporary art centre stage.

MAPPED OUT

The future is under discussion, as our map of the best ideas festivals around the world shows.

OBJETS D’ART

When irresistible object meets imaginative force, temptation is not far away.

TAKE 5

Model-turned-hotelier Ivanka Trump comes up with her choice of the natural and fashionable this season.

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TEEN SPIRIT

CULT & COLLECTABLE

SHE’S GOT SOUL

He may lead the rarifed life of a musical prodigy, but Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev also just wants to have fun. You could wear it, display it, or drive it, but whatever you do, bid for it at this season’s auctions. Sandra Choi has been the creative force at Jimmy Choo for years. Now she’s leading the company, too.

CANVAS VIVA VALLI

Revered master of haute couture Giambattista Valli talks about today’s fast-changing fashion industry.

DUBAI v SÃO PAULO

In the dazzling art fair scene, these two dominate their regions, but which should you attend?

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100

WITH THE GRAIN

112

EXHIBITIONISTS

118

L’ETRANGER

126

HERE TOMORROW

130

RUNWAY SUCCESS

137

BAKU EYE

Celebrating the new year in Azerbaijan means cooking, and that means the ancient dish called plov. Museum exhibitions dedicated to fashion are proving immensely popular with the public, and huge revenue makers. But is it art? Okwui Enwezor, director of this year’s Venice Biennale, is a seriously signifcant man on the international art scene. Marking 50 years of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Baku and 50 international artists are taking up the challenge. The fnal part of our specially commissioned series of illustrations of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Weeks round the world.

Baku’s cultural barometer of cutting-edge trends on the international art scene.

CATALOGUE

146

PLEASURE DOMES

152

DREAM TIME

159

MY ART

161

THE BUZZ

163

WILD VIEWPOINT

164

THE ARTIST

We get an exclusive preview of the spectacular starchitectdesigned pavilions at Milan EXPO 2015. Leyla Aliyeva on a conservation journey around Australia. When it comes to art, Francesca Bortolotto Possati goes Dutch. The atmosphere is electric in Baku’s new hot spots. Conserving the oceans is urgent, and marine parks can help. Mahmud Rustamov brings his dreams to life in the studio.

I DREAM MY PAINTING

166

HISTORY LESSON

FINGER ON THE PULS

168

THE ILLUSTRATOR

BEYOND THE VEIL

171

THE CIRCUIT

176

TABULA RASA

Muse upon this spring’s collections in the studios of Baku. The Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am has seen the future and it’s cool tech in unexpected places. Iranian-born artist and flmmaker Shirin Neshat is at the heart of her politically charged and beautiful works.

The saz, the ancient and modern sound of Azerbaijan. Spring is sprung in Australia. People, places and parties around the world. Nina Mahdavi sees Baku become a new centre for the arts.

COVER. Will.i.am photographed by RICK GUEST. Produced by MARIA WEBSTER.

ART. CULTURE. WILD.

A CONDE NAST PUBLICATION SPRING 2015

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CONDE NAST ART DIRECTOR MANAGING EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR/CHIEF SUB-EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT EDITOR-AT-LARGE CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

PICTURE EDITOR DESIGNER SUB-EDITOR PRODUCTION CONTROLLER DEPUTY EDITOR, RUSSIAN BAKU MAGAZINE DIRECTOR, FREUD COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, MEDIA LAND LLC IN BAKU / ADVERTISING CO-ORDINATION IN BAKU

DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR PRESIDENT, CONDE NAST INTERNATIONAL

Leyla Aliyeva Darius Sanai Daren Ellis Maria Webster Abbie Vora Laura Archer Francesca Peak Simon de Pury Jarrett Gregory Dylan Jones Emin Mammadov Hervé Mikaeloff Kenny Schachter Claire Wrathall

Nick Hall Arijana Zeric Andrew Lindesay Emma Storey Tamilla Akhmedova Hannah Pawlby Khayyam Abdinov +994 50 286 8661; info@medialand.az Matanet Bagieva

Albert Read Nicholas Coleridge

BAKU magazine has taken all reasonable efforts to trace the copyright owners of all works and images and obtain permissions for the works and images reproduced in this magazine. In the event that any of the untraceable copyright owners come forward after publication, BAKU magazine will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly. BAKU magazine is distributed globally by COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX; tel +44 1895 433800. © 2015 The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. BAKU magazine is published quarterly by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU; tel +44 20 7499 9080; fax +44 20 7493 1469. Colour origination by CLX Europe Media Solutions Ltd. Printed by Pureprint Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. 30 Baku.

Contributors

ARSALAN MOHAMMAD

RICK GUEST

MARGOT BOWMAN

HARRIET QUICK

SORAYA DAYANI

CAROLINE EDEN

is a design/fashion journalist and a former editor on Vogue. Who’s your favourite artist? Géricault – The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19) in the Louvre is an epic, mesmerizing work. Slow boat or fast train? I loved a long, romantic boat journey from Bagan in Myanmar, but fast trains are good, too. What impressed you most about Giambattista Valli (p62)? He’s completely independent, which is rare in fashion, and he’s quick-witted and just a little dangerous.

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is a London-based photographer whose work embraces celebrity, sport and ballet. Who’s your favourite artist? Henry Moore with a hammer, Egon Schiele with a brush and Gary Winogrand with a camera. Spring is a time for… Second chances and frst times. What song always gets you on the dance foor (p88)? ‘Up Town Top Ranking’ by Althia & Donna from 1977.

is a London-born, New York-based fashion stylist. Who’s your favourite artist? There are many that I love: Egon Schiele, Christo, William Wegman, Christopher Wool and Urs Fischer, to name just a few. Spring is a time for… Skipping. It’s good to feel you’re coming out of hibernation. Were the artists’ studios (p72) an inspiring place to work in? Yes, most defnitely. Each studio was so personal that the story fed off that spirit perfectly.

is an artist and illustrator in London who works across new media and fashion. Who’s your favourite artist? Ai Weiwei. Slow boat or fast train? Slow boat from Mumbai to Elephanta Island. Describe London Fashion Week (p130) in three words. Bright, irreverent, honest.

is a travel writer specializing in the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Who’s your favourite artist? The American artist Walton Ford. His watercolours of savage beasts open whole other worlds. Slow boat or fast train? I like the new high-speed trains in China as much as the decrepit paddle steamers of Bangladesh. What was your favourite plov (p100)? The shakh plov, with saffron, dried apricots, walnuts and golden raisins, was fragrant and delicious.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY RENAUD VIGOURT.

is the former editor of Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia and writes about Middle Eastern contemporary art and culture. Who’s your favourite artist? The Queen. Spring is a time for… Safety and sanctuary. Which galleries will you be making a beeline for at this year’s Art Dubai (p68)? The ones with the angry red paintings.

Playing with Fire The propensity for the ground in Azerbaijan to spontaneously burst into flames has astonished travellers from Marco Polo to Alexandre Dumas. It’s why Azerbaijan is known as ‘the land of fire’, but the truth behind this smouldering landscape is more prosaic: there’s natural gas seeping out from reserves deep underground. This phenomenon is at its most spectacular at Yanar Dag – ‘burning mountain’ – a hillside just outside Baku where flames can rise up to 10 metres, contorted into mesmerizing shapes by the winds that buffet the Absheron Peninsula. Come rain or shine, the fire is never extinguished. Photograph by RICHARD HAUGHTON

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICK KNIGHT. IMAGE COURTESY OF WELLHART LTD & ONE LITTLE INDIAN.

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WHERE IT’S AT THIS SEASON

IT’S OH SO LOUD UNTIL 7 JUNE BJÖRK

Where New York City What Offering a close look at Iceland’s famously outré export, this retrospective at MoMA covers Björk’s career to date with music, art, flm and costumes (such as for her 2007 album Volta, pictured) as well as items from her numerous collaborations with fashion designers and flm directors. moma.org 37 Baku.

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14 MARCH–2 AUGUST ALEXANDER McQUEEN: SAVAGE BEAUTY

25–31 MAY FLORAART

Where Zagreb What Celebrating its 50th year, this fower festival takes over Croatia’s capital with colour and beauty, exhibiting across seven days and several locations in the city. zrinjevac.hr

Where London What Coming from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, this celebration of McQueen’s visionary designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum marks not only a homecoming for this British design icon, but also an expansion of the original exhibition. It features famous pieces such as the butterfy headdress (right) as well as creations from the Isabella Blow Collection, and even his frst collection from London’s Central Saint Martins. vam.ac.uk

30 MAY MOBILE MOTION FILM FESTIVAL

FROM 23 MARCH YARAT

Where Baku What This Azerbaijani contemporary art organization offcially opens its new HQ in a converted former Soviet-era navy base. The 2,000sq m space houses artist studios and galleries, with an inaugural exhibition of new work by Shirin Neshat. yarat.az

14 MARCH–14 JUNE HISTORY IN THE TAKING: 40 YEARS OF PHOTOFORUM

Where Wellington What The history of PhotoForum, the organization for photographers in New Zealand, is told in an exhibition of work by about 150 photographers, including Reg Feuz (Winter Campaigner, 1975, above), whose photojournalism has charted the country’s recent past. citygallery.org.nz

18–20 JUNE SÓNAR

Where Barcelona What A festival of ‘advanced music and new media art’ at Fira Montjuïc by day and Fira Gran Via L’Hospitalet by night, featuring new and well-known dance and electronica artists such as Röyksopp (above). sonar.es 38 xx Baku.

5 APRIL–9 AUGUST HOKUSAI

Where Boston What The work of Katsushika Hokusai is celebrated in this major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts spanning his sevendecade career, including intricate cut-outs, paintings and perspective prints. mfa.org

25 APRIL–10 MAY GRAND WAGYU FAIR

Where Tokyo What Serious carnivores will gather in Shinjuku Central Park to sample some of the best beef in the world from the producers themselves, including offerings from Kobe and Matsusaka. wa-gyu.info

ANTHEA SIMMS/VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. ALEN GUROVIC/EVAN SPILER/ALAMY. COURTESY YARAT. REG FEUZ. TRISTAN POPE. WILLIAM STURGIS BIGELOW COLLECTION/MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON.

Where Zurich What This crowdfunded festival will show what a judging panel considers to be the best 15 short flms shot on smartphones, such as one of urban dancers by Tristan Pope (left). Submissions come from around the world, allowing all aspiring flmmakers to enter regardless of resources. momoflmfest.com

Portrait by Howard Sooley

t 28, the dapper and precocious Theo Danjuma already shows all the signs of a great collector-in-the-making. In just a few years, he has built a signifcant collection of contemporary art – including works by Sarah Lucas, Glenn Ligon and Matias Faldbakken – which he showcased publicly for the frst time in late 2014 in a Georgian town house in Fitzroy Square, central London. Born and raised in the UK capital, Danjuma is of Nigerian descent. As a child he loved to draw and after reading history and politics at Nottingham University, he enrolled in night classes at art school. He soon discovered his strength was not as an artist but as a passionate observer. His frst acquisition was a work on paper by Ethiopian-born, New Yorkbased artist Julie Mehretu. Danjuma seems unfazed by the pull of art-world trends, and sidesteps any artists-ofthe-moment. Instead, he has constructed his collection around his family identity and heritage, and his early love for drawing. The collection has, over time, expanded to include European and American artists, too, and a permanent space to house the works is due to open in Lagos, Nigeria, next year. In the meantime, Danjuma is strengthening his relationship with institutions through philanthropy, helping shine the spotlight on art in Africa. Perhaps most importantly of all, the same thing that drives all eminent collectors drives this one: a true passion for art and artists.

( on the RAdAR

He’s young, philanthropic and is amassing an extraordinary collection of contemporary art – meet Theo Danjuma, says Jarrett Gregory.

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Click and Collect

Theo Danjuma in front of Leo Gabin’s painting ‘Scrapping after Drillin’ (2012).

Jarrett Gregory is an associate curator at LACMA. 41 Baku.

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Bright Sparks

Here are the festivals where the future is made, where art, flm and music collide with science and technology. Tomorrow’s world starts here. Illustration by Paula Castro

1 ADOBE MAX, LOS ANGELES Make your ideas a reality in the sessions, labs and workshops run by designers, flmmakers and tech leaders. Speakers include Hollywood star Joseph GordonLevitt. 3–7 October; max.adobe.com

4 LUMINATO, TORONTO A wide-ranging programme with a show-stopping arena epic called ‘Contemporary Color’, featuring Talking Heads’ David Byrne, who devised it, and Nelly Furtado. 19–28 June; luminatofestival.com

7 INTERNATIONAL IMAGE FESTIVAL, MANIZALES Ecology + Digital Creation is 2015’s theme for this long-running Colombian event. Expect concerts, seminars, webcasts and much more. 20–25 April; festivaldelaimagen.com

2 ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL, COLORADO An intellectual powerhouse, where hundreds of presenters lead discussions on topics ranging from Facebook to human traffcking. 25 June–4 July; aspenideas.org

5 99U CONFERENCE, NEW YORK Talks, master classes and studio visits given by the world’s leading creative talents show how ideas are brought to life. 30 April–1 May; conference.99u.com

8 FILE, SAO PAULO Through workshops and interactive installations, it examines the use of technology (as in games and computers) and art to see whether the two can ever combine in a truly artistic way. 15 June–19 July; flefestival.org

3 ONE SPARK, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA Creators arrive here with an array of prototypes and ideas, all searching for investors and hoping to become the next big thing. 7–12 April; beonespark.com

6 WSF 15, NEW YORK A chance for children to direct all those tricky questions you can’t answer at the world’s top scientists. With 50 events, the World Science Festival will pique your interest, too. 27–31 May; worldsciencefestival.com

9 WIRED2015, LONDON Past events have brought together will.i.am, Ron Arad and genetics entrepreneur Anne Wojcicki, which sums up the diversity of speakers. Stay tuned for this year’s line-up. 15–16 October; wiredevent.co.uk

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maPPed out

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10 SEQUENCES VII, REYKJAVIK 13 RED APPLE, MOSCOW Out of a thriving local art scene Creatives from some of the comes this 10-day biennial, which world’s top advertising focuses on visual art forms, both agencies converge to offer producing it live and presenting seminars and master classes on it – from performance to sound to how to be the next Don Draper. video. 10–19 April; sequences.is December; festival.ru

11 ARTFUTURA, GRANADA For more than two decades this festival has merged digital culture and creativity via workshops and exhibitions. Past editions have hosted Brian Eno and Toshio Iwai. November; artfutura.org

14 DLD TEL AVIV DIGITAL 16 CONFERENCE Israel’s biggest event of its kind, this high-tech gathering offers young bright sparks a chance to meet the big guns, such as Google. 8–9 September; dldtelaviv.com

12 OFFF, BARCELONA Are you a curious sort? Then this may be the event for you – a creative forum for theorists, developers and graphic designers discussing art and the future. 28–30 May; offf.ws

15 PUBLIC ART FESTIVAL, BAKU A city-wide summer festival, curated by Yarat, that began just a few years ago. Expect local artworks dotted all over Baku. June–August; yarat.az

SPIKES ASIA, SINGAPORE The four-day festival plays host to ideas, talks and events for the region’s creative communication industry, with a special programme for under-28s. 9–11 September; spikes.asia

17 VIVID SYDNEY 2015 This year’s iteration of the hugely popular festival of music, ideas and light will feature Here Lies Love, a new musical about Imelda Marcos by David Byrne (again) and Fatboy Slim. 22 May–8 June; vividsydney.com 43 Baku.

Join the Dots Hot on the heels of his perfume collaboration with KAWS and Comme des Garçons, Pharrell Williams has produced a ‘Polka Dot Pack’ with Adidas. The Superstar track jacket is reworked in suede, with a similarly primary-coloured trio of Stan Smith sneakers also featuring the same dotted pattern. doverstreetmarket.com

Kahlo Cool

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Davidoff Cigars has launched its ‘Cave de Paille’ humidor range. Handcrafted of straw marquetry by French artist Lison de Caunes, the frst of three boxes references the ripe, green tobacco leaves picked for the production of the luxury cigars. The second and third boxes, representing the cigar bundles and smoke respectively, follow later in 2015. davidoff.com

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Taking a Leaf

This necklace, by global jewellers Anton Heunis, is part of a collection that takes its cue from Frida Kahlo. The Mexican artist and icon’s paintings and singular style are reinterpreted through ostentatious use of colours and bold, symmetrical patterns. antonheunis.com

Rebel Rebel

COMPILED BY ABBIE VORA AND JASON RILEY.

There’s something wonderfully art deco about this limited-edition handmade crystalware from Waterford. The ‘Rebel’ collection, made with designer Jo Sampson, features some striking and artful pieces, including cocktail glasses, jewellery and these elegant perfume bottles. waterford.co.uk

Art of Glass For her s/s 2015 collection, glamorous New York fashion designer Misha Nonoo has teamed up with Dustin Yellin, the supercool Brooklyn-based sculptor and artist known for his 3-D paintings of layered glass. Prints of his work adorn Nonoo’s pretty, Constructivist T-shirts and dresses – here, gamely modelled by Yellin himself. mishanonoo.com 45 Baku.

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( Pop Life Damien Hirst has gone pop art for this creative project with Lalique. Together the British artist and French glassmaker have created the limited-edition ‘Eternal’ series of crystal-glass panels. Each numbered piece, depicting one of three species of butterfy, comes in 12 colours and features the artist’s signature engraved in the corner. lalique.com

A Smash Hit

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Drawing Attention

The Shoes Fit

Box of Delights

Husband and wife Ruben and Isabel Toledo are known for their award-winning designs and illustrations. Their inimitable style can be seen in their Toledo collaboration with MAC, which features a range of lipstick, lipgloss, blusher, eyeliner and eyeshadow in cool, avant-garde hues. maccosmetics.com

Kate Spade Saturday, sister brand to Kate Spade New York, has partnered with New Balance for this bright and bold capsule collection of women’s performance footwear. Just in time for spring. newbalance.com

One Soviet family’s 20th-century history is brought to life via their private jewellery in Treasure Box. The limited-edition hardback book highlights Russian and Azerbaijani pieces (such as the gold wedding necklace, above) from masters previously unknown in the West. unicornpress.org

Debuting last year, the Diana Vreeland fragrance line has now released its sixth scent, Smashingly Brilliant. It’s the creation of famed parfumier Clement Gavarry, and celebrates the former Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief’s love affair with the Italian island of Capri. dianavreeland.com

CONTEMPORARY AB Gallery, Lucerne • Agial Art Gallery, Beirut • Aicon Gallery, New York / London • Albareh Art Gallery, Manama • Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid • Art Factum Gallery, Beirut • Art Twenty One, Lagos • Atassi Gallery, Damascus • Athr Gallery, Jeddah • Ayyam Gallery, Dubai / London / Beirut • Hannah Barry, London • Bolsa de Arte, Porto Alegre / Sao Paulo • Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan • Canvas Gallery, Karachi • Carbon 12, Dubai • Carroll/Fletcher, London • Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai • Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins • CRG Gallery, New York • Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris • Dastan’s Basement, Tehran • Elmarsa, Tunis / Dubai • Exhibit 320, New Delhi • Experimenter, Kolkata • Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai • Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan • Galerie Imane Farès, Paris • Selma Feriani Gallery, London / Tunis • Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch, Rome • Honor Fraser, Los Angeles • GAGProjects, Adelaide / Berlin • Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea, Rome • Green Art Gallery, Dubai • Grey Noise, Dubai • Grosvenor Gallery, London • Gypsum Gallery, Cairo • Leila Heller Gallery, New York • Inda Gallery, Budapest • In Situ/Fabienne Leclerc, Paris • Galerie Iragui, Moscow • Galerie Jaeger Bucher, Paris • Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels • Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai • Kalfayan Galleries, Athens / Thessaloniki • Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna • Kurimanzutto, Mexico D.F. • Latitude 28, New Delhi • Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai • Galerie Lelong, Paris / New York • Victoria Miro, London • ma2gallery, Tokyo • mor.charpentier, Paris • Galleria Franco Noero, Turin • Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris / Brussels • Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore • Pechersky Gallery, Moscow • Pi Artworks, Istanbul / London • Raster, Warsaw • Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York • Sanatorium, Istanbul • Schleicher/Lange, Berlin • Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg / Beirut • Gallery SKE, Bangalore / New Delhi • Galerie Tanit, Munich / Beirut • Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Talinn • Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris / Brussels • The Third Line, Dubai • Viltin Gallery, Budapest • Wentrup, Berlin • Whatiftheworld, Cape Town • Yay Gallery, Baku MODERN Shaﬁc Abboud (Agial Art Gallery, Beirut) • Shahid Sajjad (ArtChowk, Karachi) • Gouider Triki / Hatim Elmekki (Elmarsa, Tunis / Dubai) • Mohsen Vaziri Moghadam (Gallery Etemad, Tehran) • Mahmoud Hammad (Green Art Gallery, Dubai) • Shaﬁc Abboud / Abdallah Benanteur (Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris) • Farid Belkahia (LeViolon Bleu, Tunis) • Mohamed Melehi/Mohamed Hamidi (Loft Art Gallery, Casablanca) • Dia Azzawi / Marwan Kassab Bachi (Meem Gallery, Dubai) • Bruce Onabrakpeya (Mydrim Gallery, Lagos) • Ernesto Shikhany / Manuel Figueira (Perve Galeria, Lisbon) • Jamil Molaeb (Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut) • Kourosh Shishegaran (Shirin Gallery, Tehran / New York) • Aref El Rayess (The Park Gallery, London) • Project Space: Works by Kaveh Golestan (curated by Vali Mahlouji) artdubai.ae

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TAKE 5

Ivanka Trump 1. Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia

ANDREW H WALKER/BRIAN KILLIAN/WIREIMAGE/GETTY. ZOONAR GMBH/ANDREW CATTA/ALAMY. MILES ERTMAN/MASTERFILE/CORBIS.

One of my favourite adventures. The scenery there is truly breathtaking. I’ve been several times and each time it’s more amazing than the last. The next time I go to Chile I want to ski the glaciers in Portillo.

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The modelturned-hotelier tells us what’s on her cultural wish list this spring, from fashion’s fnest to natural beauty.

The Spa at Trump International Hotel & Tower, Baku

Trump spas are known for their luxurious amenities and the one at Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku will be no exception when it opens in June. The hotel will feature a huge spa area with indoor swimming pools and a ftness centre. I’m looking forward to having a workout and massage there when I arrive – the best cure for jet lag.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala, New York

The Met Gala on 4 May is the ultimate event for fashion, friends and fun in New York City. This year’s gala theme is ‘Chinese Whispers’ and it promises to be a night to remember. I try to attend every year; it’s such a moment for the fashion world. I feel privileged to celebrate such talented designers and get together with industry luminaries and icons.

National Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington DC

Signifying the return of spring and symbolizing the enduring friendship between the United States and Japan, this is an amazing event (until 12 April) that combines contemporary arts and culture with the chance to experience the city in its natural beauty. I love nature so when I’m at home in New York my husband, Jared Kushner, and I often visit the Botanical Garden with our children. It’s just a quick trip from central Manhattan where we live, and a worthwhile experience.

White Nights, St Petersburg

The White Nights is a beautiful phenomenon, from May to July, thanks to St Petersburg’s northerly location. It’s a magical and romantic time when it never gets dark – I’ve always wanted to experience it frsthand. An arts festival runs at the same time. I visited Russia for the frst time last year and it was fantastic.

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lvin Ganiyev is dressed in the internationalcool-teenager’s uniform of long parka with fur-lined hood, black T-shirt, black jeans and high-top trainers. He shuffes around awkwardly. His mother has been to Zara to stock up on outfts for her son for the Baku magazine photo shoot about to take place in a room off a courtyard in central Zurich, and at the moment she is kneeling on the foor and pulling tuxedos out of a large suitcase. “What about this? Or this?” she wonders aloud, fngering a velvet jacket. Ganiyev is embarrassed. “Mum. Stop it. It’s fne,” he says. As Narmina Ganiyeva starts to show me photos of the prodigy as a small boy, he hides his face in his hands. “Muuuum!” The 17-year-old is the grandson of Azerbaijani virtuoso violinist Server Ganiyev, Elvin’s frst teacher, and a star student of Siberian violin maestro Zakhar Bron. His father, Hayreddin Hoxha, is principal cellist for the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Turkey. Bron, along with violin greats such as Yuri Bashmet and Vladimir Spivakov, believes the teenager will soon be one of the best violinists in the world. But Ganiyev is no hot-housed introvert – he is an ordinary teenager, who loves football, thinks Switzerland is boring and is embarrassed by his mum’s overt adoration. Young and chaperoned, yes, but Ganiyev already lives the life of a professional musician, commuting between Interlaken, Switzerland (“There’s nothing to do there! Just mountains!”), and Madrid, following maestro Bron. Vadim Repin, a former star pupil of Bron, came to hear

Sketches

Portraits by Maurice Haas

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He may lead the rarifed life of a musical prodigy, but while Elvin Hoxha Ganiyev dreams of owning a Strad he’s also fanatical about Real Madrid, as Anna Blundy hears.

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Teen Spirit

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Ganiyev play recently and – Elvin’s mother laughs as she retells the story – Repin left the room afterwards, saying, “I’d better go and practise”. “Elvin is going to be better than all of them!” she declares. Listening to Ganiyev play, off the cuff, socks on the bare parquet of the photographer’s studio, it’s not hard to believe. With his grandfather’s old violin under his chin, he closes his eyes and becomes a vehicle for heartbreaking beauty

Clockwise from above: Elvin Ganiyev in 2013; as a boy with (left to right) his grandfather Server Ganiyev, uncle Togrul Ganiyev, Elvin himself aged nine, the viola player Cavid Caferov, and his parents Narmina Ganiyeva and Hayreddin Hoxha; the young prodigy playing at the Unesco Hall in Paris, 2010.

(though I imagine young girls must fnd his ordinary beauty quite heartbreaking, too). When he fnally opens his eyes, lifting the bow from the still-humming strings, he meets our tearful gazes. “That was the second movement of the Tchaikovsky that I’m playing in Berlin,” he says, referring to his debut as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic. “Shall we go? I’m starving.” Ganiyev has won many prizes in international violin competitions, most signifcantly the International LipinskiWieniawski Young Violinist Competition and the 5th Moscow International David Oistrakh Violin Competition. “He only practises three or four hours a day,” his mother says (musical prodigies can practise up to 14 hours a day). She flms her son’s lessons with Bron to play back later. “It was clear

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straight away, when he was about four, that he was crazy talented,” she says. The talent is undeniable, but parental dedication is a crucial factor to success. Narmina has given up her life, despite serious health issues, to chaperone Elvin around the world, attend his lessons, supervise his practice and set up his concerts and competitions. Bron insists that his relationship is with both of them equally. “Maybe one day he’ll be grateful,” she says with a sigh. “Maybe not…” The three of us walk together through the streets of Zurich as it rains from the grey northern European sky. “I like the sun,”

IT WAS CLEAR STRAIGHT AWAY, WHEN HE WAS ABOUT FOUR, THAT HE WAS CRAZY TALENTED. Elvin says, longingly. “Beaches. The sea. I love Baku.” The Ganiyevs spend as much time as possible in Narmina’s home city of Baku and Elvin clearly wishes, in some respects, for the ordinary life of a local. “Last time we were there we went to meet two people in a restaurant and by midnight there were 20 of us,” he says. “People just come along. I love that. Here the kids practise all the time and we don’t socialize much. Me, I like playing pool, having a beer…” He’s joking but his mother looks shocked nevertheless, which was the idea. As the rain comes down harder, Ganiyev hunches his shoulders. “And I’ll probably be teaching here myself in 40 or 50 years,” he says quietly. He is utterly relaxed about the trajectory of his career being mapped out at just 17 years old: a couple of decades as an international soloist, followed by a few professorships and, eventually, he’ll be teaching boys and girls just like him now. Ganiyev needs a new string so we visit Zurich’s specialist music shop Musik Hug. “My violin is not a great one,” he tells me.

Soon after, dipping bread into a vat of boiling cheese in a noisy restaurant, Ganiyev is babbling away about his other favourite subject, Real Madrid football team, but he soon switches back to violins. His Azerbaijani heritage is close to his heart and Azerbaijan has embraced him, so much so in fact that the country’s First Lady has promised to help him get a new violin with which to wow the world. “We’ve seen about 15 violins,” Ganiyev tells me. ‘Seeing’, in this world, means fying a dealer over and taking the violin for a week or two to try it out. “It’s quite scary,” he says, as ‘violin’ here means something made in the

18th century that costs upwards of several million euros. “And then I have to give them back and pick up mine again.” His desire for an instrument to match his talent is obvious. Ganiyev has played on some of the world’s most prestigious stages. In 2012 he played with the Bron Chamber Orchestra and Zakhar Bron in the Hajibeyov Festival in Azerbaijan and with the Moscow Virtuosi under Vladimir Spivakov; and he performed the Sibelius concerto with the Azerbaijan Philharmonic under Rauf Abdullayev at the Rostropovich Festival in Baku. Now, he has concerts planned worldwide in 2015. He continues to train with Bron and somehow he has to fnish his education. Technically, he is at school in Turkey and has to go back to sit exams, but there isn’t much time for schoolwork in his gruelling schedule. As we have dessert, an email arrives from Ganiyev’s father. It seems that the Kubelik Stradivarius, made in 1713 and once played by Israeli virtuoso Ivry Gitlis, has come up for sale. Ganiyev’s face lights up. “I want that violin!” he says, followed by a sigh of resignation. “Once you are at this level, the instrument really counts – you can’t play well enough to make a cheap violin sound like a Strad,” Narmina explains. Looking at this young yet charismatic boy, it’s possible to believe that, actually, Elvin Ganiyev probably can.

SALE ‘Canadian Fine Art Auction’ at Waddington’s, Toronto, 25 May. PADDLE UP! ‘Voyage’ (1971) by John Meredith, oil on canvas. Estimate: CAD$20,000–30,000.

Here Comes the Sun SALE ‘Limited Editions’ at Piasa Auctions, Paris, 15 April. PADDLE UP! ‘Sunliners’ (1995) by Ed Ruscha, series of seven etchings with aquatint on paper. Estimate: €4,000–6,000.

A Fishy Tale

Get Your Bling On

SALE ‘Important Books, Manuscripts & Works on Paper’ at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury, London, 21 May. PADDLE UP! ‘Ichthyologie’ (1795) by Marc Eliéser Bloch, with 216 hand-coloured or colour-printed plates, some heightened in silver. Estimate: £15,000–20,000.

SALE ‘Jewelry Signature Auction’ at Heritage Auctions, New York, 4–6 May. PADDLE UP! Chanel ‘Camélia’ diamond, pink sapphire and 18k white-gold bracelet. Estimate: $200,000–250,000.

Red Alert

Sweet Ride

SALE ‘Contemporary Auctions and Projects’ at Waddington’s, Toronto, 13 April. PADDLE UP! ‘Ping Pong Paddle’ (1981) by Barbara Astman, colour print. Estimate: CAD$18,000–22,000.

SALE ‘The Andrews Collection’ at RM Auctions, Fort Worth, Texas, 2 May. PADDLE UP! Ferrari 400 Superamerica LWB Coupé Aerodinamico by Pininfarina (1963). Estimate: $3,500,000–4,500,000.

( Cult & Collectable

O Canada

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HOTTEST UPCOMING AUCTIONS

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t the forefront of my mind was abstract art mixed with ethnicity against a backdrop of Josephine Baker. That’s when the fringes came in,” says Sandra Choi, picking up a gorgeous fringed clutch. “The collection is strong and fun at the same time.” The mind of today’s designer needs to loop and twist between concepts and infuences like this to create something special in the world of luxury. And 42-year-old Choi, who has been working as a designer for the company for her entire career and is now in charge as sole creative director, is well versed in such Choo-spirations. For this spring/summer, Choi explored the work of the little-known Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint, a contemporary of Kandinsky. Choi fell in love with Klint’s sense of colour and form and was also drawn to the life of a female artist – a rare breed in the early 20th century. The result of Choi’s research is a series of designs that pulsate with energy, with kinetic fringes and geometric colour blocks which also seduce with their tactility. Standouts include ‘Kaya’, a python strappy heel that features three different buckle designs and a geometric cone heel, and ‘Dimple’, a court in zebra with a fash of neon. Jimmy Choo will be forever associated with teetering heels, but the true range of styles segues from chunky to delicate stilettoes, to wedges and boyish androgynous fats. Choi picks up a favourite rubber-soled design in shiny patent with cut-outs. “Choo is known for strappy sandals, so this is a fat strappy. A hybrid, if you like.” It is just one of approximately 120 styles that Choi oversees

Sketches

Portraits by Cat Garcia

(

For years Sandra Choi has worked behind the scenes at Jimmy Choo. Now she’s leading the world-famous shoe label with the same creative flair, as Harriet Quick finds out.

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She’s got Soul

This page and overleaf: Sandra Choi in her studio in London.

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(

Sketches

( for every collection four times a year. Add handbags, and the men’s range, and the total is more than a thousand products every year. “I don’t ever want to make an ugly shoe. Whatever we do needs to be beautiful and to carry the brand’s DNA. We are designing for women of today, and she could be doing many things but she wants to feel like a woman, even in trainers.” A man also wants to feel like a man. For the Jimmy Choo

Giorgio Armani. For such a central location, there is attractive light and space. The four foors of the shiny high-rise that Jimmy Choo occupies hum quietly with activity, with mood boards, architectural plans and samples scattered around. “We thought we would be rattling around in here but we are actually overfowing,” says Choi, laughing. On the top foor is Jab Holdings, the private investment frm that owns the brand. In October 2014 it released 25 per cent of the company in an IPO. The share offer was successfully fanned by an annual 10 per cent increase in turnover (an estimated £300 million) and a focused store roll-out throughout Asia. British-born Choi frst learnt the trade and craft of shoemaking from her uncle, the Malaysian-born Jimmy

by Jimmy. He gave me the foundation I needed in building and designing shoes. It is very technical – one’s entire body weight is being propped up by these vertical heels. In the early days I was going to Italy to talk with the craftsmen who live and breathe leather goods. I needed to challenge them to do what I wanted and that gave me the power and confdence to create something that succeeded,” Choi continues. Her designs have become gradually more

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1. Leah Wood, the late David Collins and Sandra Choi in London, 2012. 2. Jimmy Choo ‘London’ mesh and leather trainer.

menswear collection, the principles are the same. “They are wearable for real men,” Choi says, pointing to a bestselling update on a desert boot called the ‘J Boot’ and to deck shoes in perky pastel shades. Choi, today wearing a cashmere jumper, skinny jeans and black suede stilettoes with her asymmetric short hair and easy smile, cuts an elfn fgure. She looks as happy in luxe normcore clothes as she does in the embellished white Osman shift dress that she wore to the White House to take part in the First Lady’s Fashion Education initiative. Her London offce, in Victoria, is dotted with art and fashion books, with a serene view over the gentrifed Howick Place outside. The area is also home to the headquarters of Tom Ford, Marc Newson and

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Choo, who set up his couture shoe business in the mid-1990s in London’s East End. At that time, Choo was making heels for an elite of society women who came to the brand for elegant styles in exotic skins, strappy metallics and colourful bejewelled satins. Diana, Princess of Wales was an early fan, and today the brand is worn by Hollywood stars and professional women alike, including Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron. The luxury shoe market in the mid-1990s was just in its infancy with only a handful of notable players such as Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik. Jimmy Choo the brand was set up in 1996 by Jimmy Choo and Tamara Mellon, who invested in and co-founded the ready-to-wear collection and helped accelerate the business into a global player. Jimmy Choo himself departed the company in 2001. With new backers, the next decade saw unprecedented growth with store openings throughout the US catering to the Sex and the City-inspired appetite for sensational heels. Until Mellon’s departure in 2011 (following the buyout by Jab Holdings), Choi was the brand’s secret weapon. She has since stepped forward as the public face, a role she manages by making a clear distinction between her personal and professional life. “I did not graduate or go to art college; I went to the university of life,” she explains. “I got on with whatever was thrown at me. I was fortunate to be trained

and more audacious as she learnt what could be done. “I always want to push the boundaries but at the same time respect the fundamentals and make sure every shoe is wearable. I am a designer not an artist, and I design things that function. A shoe needs to look amazing and feel amazing.” There are many different customers to seduce. Jimmy Choo currently has 180 stores in 32 countries, and last year it opened a fagship in Baku.

I ALWAYS WANT TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES BUT AT THE SAME TIME RESPECT THE FUNDAMENTALS AND MAKE SURE EVERY SHOE IS WEARABLE.

ante and has launched a bespoke service in selected stores. Clients can order their own custom-made designs from a menu of styles and materials (such as suede, satin, lace and exotic leathers) with a message or signature stamped on the sole. Working in a demanding role that involves frequent long-haul travel could be overwhelming. But Choi and her husband, Tamburlaine Gorst, who is an artist, and their two young girls (aged four and one) are careful to carve out family time between their home in south London and their ‘escape’ – a small house outside Bath. They had not intended to buy a second home

7. 3. Jimmy Choo ‘Dimple’ court shoe. Sandra Choi photographed in 2014 with (4) Minnie Driver; (5) husband Tamburlaine Gorst, Mimi Xu and Polly Morgan; (6) Daisy Lowe; (8) Mary Katrantzou; and (9) Thandie Newton and Kerry Washington. 7. The Jimmy Choo ‘Kaya’. 10. Choi and Tamara Mellon at the Jimmy Choo 10th anniversary party in 2006. 11. Choi with models at the Jimmy Choo s/s 2015 men’s show, London.

BILLY FARRELL AGENCY/REX. DONATO SARDELLA/DAVID M. BENETT/FRANZISKA KRUG/GETTY.

“It’s a jewel in the world and it’s so exciting to be a part of the thriving cultural scene,” says Choi of Baku. “The country has an East-meets-West exoticism and a cosmopolitan fair.” Such cultural and artistic fusion excites Choi. She recently commissioned British artist Mat Collishaw to shoot the cruise campaign, inspired by gemstones and the urban skyline, entitled Vices (featuring model Ondria Hardin). It is this clever fusion of art and fashion that brings vitality to the brand. “I want the stores to have the intimacy of luxury,” she says. “I don’t want to go somewhere that’s like a museum – warmth is fabulous. I was trained to have that sense of connection, that relationship with customers; that is true luxury for me.” Alongside the main collection and the classic range called 24/7, Jimmy Choo is upping the

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but on seeing the cottage with its own arboretum of 600 oaks, they were smitten. “I love the tranquillity,” Choi says. “We are doing it up step by step.” They spend weekends rummaging in restoration yards and vintage stores and recently purchased a big oak beam that is being redesigned as a fre fender. “It’s a dream for the children. I want them to have a tree house and swings. I want them to grow up respecting where things come from, knowing they are more fortunate than others and having a heart.” Of the family’s complex timetabling, she laughs: “we have to be bloody organized”. Their house in Battersea, south London, is a warm, invigorating environment. Her husband’s oil paintings hang on the walls while a big reclaimed-oak kitchen table acts as the hub. “If I wasn’t doing this I would have wanted to be an architect,” says Choi, momentarily daydreaming. “I love what I do, though. You mention the name Jimmy Choo and people are excited and positive. It’s like a switch and I want to keep it that way.” Therein lies the magic of a beautiful pair of shoes – wearing a pair can instantly light up your day.

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Spring Issue

RICHARD HAUGHTON

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Waiting in the wings Scribe, take care with my dreams! To the Erlking and beyond Go light on the saffron Turn left for Tuvalu One love

Revered for his sculpted silhouettes and vibrant colours, Paris designer Giambattista Valli is quietly upholding the ageless charm of couture within today’s fast-changing fashion industry.

he Giambattista Valli Parisian HQ, located in a 17thcentury building in the rue Boissy d’Anglas near the Place de la Madeleine, is an exercise in contrasts. The grandest room is clad in carved wood panelling and features a generous desk, an ottoman upholstered in hand-woven chenille fabric, and low-lying minimalist sofas. It’s where Valli receives his guests and clients, such as Noor Fares, the pretty, twentysomething Lebanese fne jeweller, who has just come on a feeting visit to the city. On the other side of a hallway is a big, plain, square room that is currently a sea of fabric. Lengths of hand embroidered tulle, hand-tufted chiffons, silk faille and cady are scattered across the foor. “Here is the reality,” says the Italian designer, dressed in a dark nut-brown sweater and black jeans, staring at the chromatic jigsaw puzzle. Since entering the fashion world in 1988 as an assistant to the famboyant Italian haute couturier Roberto Capucci, Valli, now 48, has become a master of the craft as well as an insider in the world of women. He has a natural understanding of how clothes make women feel, and his hallmarks are fne texture, 62 Baku.

luxurious fabric, impeccable cut and a sense of timeless femininity. “I’m not intimidated to create beautiful clothes,” says the designer, who eschews trends in favour of making investment clothes that combine vivacity with structure. Three richly embroidered short ivory bustier gowns in the showroom look like debutantes waiting for an invitation to dance. “I love colours from nature – I don’t touch neutrals,” says Valli, who also has something of an obsession with papal purple and clerical red. In a fashion world that currently oscillates between extremes – spring/summer sees soft-focus 1970s revivalism jostling with an aggressive, black, hyper-sexual trend – Valli’s collections exist in a parallel universe of gentility and sensuality. It’s why so many women are devotees, from shoe designer Charlotte Olympia Dellal (a one-time studio assistant who was married in a Valli tulle gown) to Amal Clooney (who wore a Valli ivory lace founced short dress the day after her marriage to George) to octogenarian Lee Radizwell, via half of Hollywood – Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Aniston and Emma

KRISTY SPAROW/BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/FRENCH SELECT/GETTY.

Words by HARRIET QUICK Illustrations by ALESSANDRO MONACO

Opposite: Giambattista Valli takes a bow at (top) the Moncler Gamme Rouge s/s 2015 show at Paris Fashion Week, and (bottom) the a/w 2014-15 show at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week.

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I LOVE COLOURS FROM NATURE – I DON’T TOUCH NEUTRALS. Stone all wear his designs. “Valli is bought for special occasions – weddings, social engagements or red carpet events such as flm premieres. When our customers invest in a Valli dress they are looking for something unique and timeless,” says Anita Barr, group buying director at Harvey Nichols. Valli has a lot to offer – the output of this self-confessed workaholic is immense. From his Paris studio Valli, who now 64 Baku.

has about 50 employees, designs two haute couture collections, two ready-to-wear collections plus cruise and pre-fall each year. Last September on the Milan catwalks, he launched a lower-priced, younger line called Giamba that debuts in more than 500 stores this spring, and there is also a licensed shoe collection. On top of that, Valli designs the Moncler Gamme Rouge collection (the premium design-led line for the Italian outerwear specialist) and has collaborated with 7 For All Mankind jeans for a capsule collection. There is also the 2015 launch of a series of fve red lipstick shades for MAC. “I remember Anna Wintour saying on David Letterman’s show, lipstick is the quickest and most cost-effective way of changing your look,” he says. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Valli’s frst show in Paris. “In July we are planning a celebration. Spring is just so busy with Giamba, GV, Moncler. I’m so happy to launch Giamba. It’s not what people expected from me, but I have wanted to launch a sister

line for a long time. I want to explore the full breadth of a woman’s wardrobe,” says the designer, who tied up with Italian manufacturer, BVM SpA, to produce and distribute the collection. All of Valli’s other concerns are 100 per cent owned and controlled by him with wholesale revenues hovering around the 22 million euro mark. “It’s expensive to be independent, to have that freedom, and it’s a big luxury, too. I follow every aspect of the business,” says the handson, multitasking Italian. His ethereal assistant, a slight man with platinum blond hair

OLEG NIKISHIN/EPSILON/FRAZER HARRISON/PIERRE TEYSSOT/AFP/ STEFANIA D’ALESSANDRO/PAUL MORIGI/WIREIMAGE/GETTY.

Devotees of Valli wearing his designs, including (1) Charlize Theron, (2) Rihanna, (3) Amal Clooney, with George in Venice, (4) Noomi Rapace, (5) Katy Perry, and (6) Sarah Jessica Parker.

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called Elia, recalls a recent trip to Hong Kong and Shanghai where Valli presented highlights from the No 7 Haute Couture Collection (Valli works by numbers rather than names) to a high society elite. “For 10 days we stayed up until the early hours of the morning and slept until noon. It worked! We did not suffer jet lag,” says Elia, who also oversees the intricate work of the embroidery ateliers. “Sometimes I’m looking at my watch thinking, ‘how am I going to get to the end of the day?’ The workload can be frustrating. I meditate – it helps me enjoy the plénitude du moment, and appreciate the fullness of the day,” says Valli, who is also a voracious reader and connoisseur of art and design. He swipes through a mood board on an iPad to illustrate the multilayered references of his s/s collection that focuses on elegant, precise fared-leg trousers and tunics featuring organic ‘arts and crafts’ embroideries. Valli had researched Japanese Metabolist architecture (a postwar movement that aimed to combine big structures with the potential for organic growth) and handicraft. The collection juxtaposed clean, uniform lines with graphic stripes, calligraphic prints and cherry blossom embroideries. “I think the fare and tunic is a new ensemble – it is easy, and effortless, plus people do

TODAY, YOU ARE CONSIDERED AN ARTIST. I DON’T THINK OF MYSELF AS SUCH – FASHION IS ARTISTIC BUT IT IS NOT MAKING ART.

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Giambattista Valli with (1) Emma Watson; (2) Lena Dunham; (3) Naomi Campbell; (4) Carine Roitfeld; (6) John Galliano; (7) Brooke Shields; (8) Ines de la Fressange; (9) Franca Sozzani; (10) models at the Giamba show, Milan, 2014; (11) Natalia Vodianova and Miroslava Duma; and (12) models at his show at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, 2014.

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could change the colour of the lipstick. If they fell in love with a dress, they might also order curtains in the same fabric. Sometimes a client would present a piece of jewellery – perhaps given to them by their husband at the birth of their frst child – and would want a design created around it. This world does not exist anymore – it was a world that linked back to Marie Antoinette. To be a couturier was to be a fournisseur,” says Valli, smiling at the memory of that faded world. “Today, you are considered an artist. I don’t think of myself as such – fashion is artistic but it is not making art – but clients want to ‘collect’ pieces in the same way that one might collect

art. Paris Haute Couture Week becomes like Art Basel Miami or Frieze. Clients buy haute couture, they buy vintage haute couture in auctions and create a collection with a point of view. Before, haute couture was like plastic surgery for the body; it was a means of reinterpreting one’s proportions to make your waist smaller or your legs longer. Now, women want pieces exactly as they are in the showroom, unmodifed.” Valli left Ungaro in 2005 to launch his business. “It was like being a translator or voiceover in a movie. It gets to the point when you really want to act,” says the designer, who had a mission to infuse readyto-wear with the exacting proportions and grace of haute

J VESPA. EVAN AGOSTINI/IMAGEDIRECT/DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS/FRED DUVAL/JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC /VENTURELLI/MICHEL DUFOUR/ WIREIMAGE/BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/ERIC RYAN/SVEEVA VIGEVENO/

not expect trousers from me,” says Valli, who draws upon an encyclopaedic knowledge of Italian cinema, arte povera and modernist art of the 1960s (with artists such as Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni) and Roman architecture, all of which are constants in his aesthetic lexicon. His febrile imagination dips and dives nimbly between the highly refned and the visceral and raw – he is also an admirer of the work of the artist Louise Bourgeois and collects photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans and the late Corinne Day. Some of those passions, alongside sketches that chart the evolution of

each collection, are collected together in an impressive 400-page book by Valli and published by Rizzoli. “It’s not that I want to paint La Gioconda on a dress but I love the emotion of art,” says Valli. No one could have predicted the wide use of digitized media, the global reach and the breakneck speed of the fashion and luxury world today. Back when Valli stepped into the business, fresh from an education at Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, the city where he was born, and London’s Central Saint Martins where he studied illustration, fashion was an elite, insular world that was still frmly split between mass market and high society. Following his training at Roberto Capucci, Valli went on to work at Fendi in 1990 at a time when Karl Lagerfeld was re-energizing the Roman accessories house with an injection of glamour. Then, moving to Paris in 1997, Valli joined the fabled house of Emanuel Ungaro to work at the side of Ungaro himself, creating famboyant, colourful, gowns for an haute couture clientele. “I am really at the meeting of the last century and the new millennium,” he says. “When I was at Ungaro, clients arrived at the atelier with several lipsticks. Whenever they tried on a new gown, they

(5) Valli at Paris Fashion Week, 2012. (13) Jennifer Lopez wearing Valli on stage. (14) The designer at the Moncler Collection, Paris, 2009. (15) A detail from the Valli show at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, 2013.

PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/FRENCH SELECT/VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO/ GETTY. CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS/KCS PRESSE/SPLASH NEWS/CORBIS.

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couture. “People thought I was mad,” he says. It was in those early collections that Valli established his imprint: ivory, red and black for colour, and fne couture fabrics like cloque and radzimir silk in sculpted silhouettes that carry themselves off with a certain imperiousness. At a time when fashion was obsessed with being ‘cool’, and the off-duty model look (biker jackets and skinny jeans) was the biggest trend infuencer, Valli’s rarefed world looked infnitely appealing. Soon a swathe of leggy international beauties such as Bianca Brandolini d’Adda, the heiress Tatiana Santa Domingo and model Astrid Muñoz were regulars in his front row and his ‘fower

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explosion’ dresses became the thing at glamorous parties everywhere. “I want women to have a good time in my dresses – to dance, have adventures, love – not to sit,” says Valli, who is savvy, alert and not the slightest bit prudish. In his studio there is a big photograph that Valli took of a former stylist-turned-model who shows off a male physique beneath a shroud of wet muslin, resembling an eroticized Renaissance marble fgure. Where luxury in the noughties might have equated to a NetJets subscription, a multiple property portfolio and bedazzling bling, Valli, at least for himself, values quiet. “Everything is everywhere. People living out their private lives on social media, in reality TV shows – sometimes I feel embarrassed to be in front of it. I don’t want to hide anything and I am ready to sell but at the same time you’re not going to see me next to a celebrity on Instagram. There is no charm. Maybe that’s oldfashioned but I also think it’s something for the future.” When the working day is done, Valli closes the door and leads a private life. He lives in an apartment overlooking the Canal Saint-Martin, joins friends for low-key dinners, and holidays in Positano. What does he aspire to now? “Serenity,” he laughs, as the Paris night

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I WANT WOMEN TO HAVE A GOOD TIME IN MY DRESSES – TO DANCE, TO HAVE ADVENTURES, TO LOVE – NOT TO SIT. air flls with the ominous sounds of thunderclaps, gusting wind and pelting rain. “I would love the time in my life to read everything that I still have not read. I have all this but there is so much more I want to know about. Like Picasso, like Chanel, I would love that freshness, youthful enthusiasm, and the brightness in your eyes that comes from living your life fully right through to the end. I think this brings serenity.”

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As the art world increasingly turns its attention to the Middle East and Latin America, the regions’ biggest art fairs come into the spotlight – Art Dubai and SP-Arte. How do they compare? We send Arsalan Mohammad to Dubai and Camila Belchior to São Paulo to investigate.

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THE FAIRS

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SIDDHARTH SIVA/COURTESY ART DUBAI. PAUL MAROTTA/GETTY. COURTESY LAUREN SEIDEN AND GALLERY NOSCO. PANGEIA DE DOIS.

DUBAI: Launched in 2006 by British gallery owner John Martin and former banker Ben Floyd (who apparently had the idea for the fair while paddling on the beach), Art Dubai started with 39 galleries. This edition – from 18 to 21 March – is a vast, sprawling organism, with 92 galleries covering modern and contemporary art. Galleries this year include Dubai stalwarts The Third Line and Lawrie Shabibi along with London’s Kashya Hildebrand and Hannah Barry, Leila Heller and Tyler Rollins from New York City, and more esoteric choices such as Franco Noera from Turin and Kurimanzutto from Mexico City. They all ft within a non-proft-making programme run by fair director Antonia Carver, who, along with Floyd, has developed the event into a regional powerhouse of progress and a vital platform for hitherto under-represented Arab and Middle Eastern artists.

SÃO PAULO: The modernist Biennial pavilion, the Ciccillo Matarazzo, with its distinctive winding ramps, in São Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park has hosted the city’s major annual art fair, the São Paulo International Art Fair (SP-Arte, for short), since its inaugural edition in 2005. Founded by Fernanda Feitosa, Sp-Arte is now a highlight in the calendar of South America’s art scene and the opening night is a glitzy affair for the Brazilian art community. Expect to rub shoulders with internationally acclaimed Brazilian artists Vik Muniz and graffti duo Os Gêmeos, plus, this edition, Anselm Kiefer, whose solo show at the city’s White Cube gallery will have just opened. Among the 20,000 or so visitors to the fair – from 9 to 12 April – are eminent collectors such as Martin Margulies and Patrícia Phelps de Cisneros, advisers such as Amy Cappellazzo, curators Tanya Barson of London’s Tate Modern and Luis Pérez-Oramas from MoMA in New York, as well as fashion royalty such as Kate Moss. 69 Baku.

THE NETWORKS DUBAI: The fair takes place at the Madinat Jumeirah complex, in the shadow of the imposing Mina a’Salam hotel, where one can reside in opulent Dubai style. During the day, trawl the waterside cafes and bars to spot art-world luminaries air-kissing, gossiping and arguing. In the evening, you’ll fnd collectors such as Don and Mera Rubell, Richard Chang, Dasha Zhukova and Prince Yemisi Shyllon chatting to curators such as Massimiliano Gioni, Catherine David and Richard Armstrong. Haunts of the ‘arterati’ include The Agency restaurant, the Rivington Bar & Grill, and The Belgian Beer Café at the Grand Millennium Hotel, which fll up nightly with people fercely debating cross-cultural alienation, gender politics in Yemen and whose turn it is to buy a round.

SÃO PAULO: The fair’s foodie hot spot is Santinho, but if all the tables have gone, head to the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM). It may be a less obvious choice but it takes in spillover from the fair. The Brazil-based German curator, Alfons Hug (responsible for the 25th and 26th Bienal de São Paulo), is often seen there. Since Ibirapuera Park is a large and lush green area, it’s perfect for picnicking. Or go to the top foor of the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, where you can take in fantastic panoramic views of the city and bump into someone important on a quick post-lunch tour. The museum hosts a brunch up here, too – worth trying to score an invitation. 70 Baku.

THE ART DUBAI: Art Dubai’s balance of participating galleries is tilted to the wider Middle East and Asia, with a healthy showing of Western names to help even things out. Dubai’s location – pretty much in the middle of everything – means easy accessibility for collectors and galleries to trade art from across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Far East and the West. One of the fair’s distinct selling points is this cultural diversity. In 2015, for instance, you are going to see international names such as David Hockney, Yto Barrada, Shafc Abboud, Ali Cherry and NS Harsha. The annual Marker programme focuses on emerging artists from a specifc region. Previous editions focused on Central Asia and the Caucasus, West Africa and Indonesia. This year it’s Latin America, curated by Luiza Teixeira de Freitas. Participants include Videobrasil, Maria José Arjona, Marina Buendia and Maria Quiroga.

SÃO PAULO: The market for Brazilian art began to heat up in 2011, when Christie’s sold a work by Adriana Varejão for $1.7m, a record trumped by Sotheby’s sale of Beatriz Milhazes’s Meu Limão (2000) for $2m in 2012. Now Brazilian art is to be seen in museum shows and collections worldwide. SP-Arte, regarded as the most important art fair in Latin America, will host more than 140 galleries, more than half of which are from Brazil, with the remainder coming from 17 countries. International heavyweights such as White Cube, Pace and David Zwirner are now regulars at SP-Arte; this year, The Approach and Goodman Gallery are among the newcomers. A new section called Open Plan will bring together 25 large-scale artworks by artists such as Amilcar de Castro and Mona Hatoum, while Cauê Alves curates a special performance area. The Solo Section will return, offering an assemblage of galleries showing a single artist.

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OFF-SITE HOT SPOTS

MATTHEW EISMAN/VENTURELLI/WIREIMAGE/WARREN LITTLE/STEFANIE KEENAN/GETTY. COURTESY YTO BARRADA AND SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY, BEIRUT/HAMBURG. ALEX ROBINSON/JAI/GEORGIOS KEFALAS/EPA/CORBIS. BENOIT PEVERELLI. © SUCCESSION SHAFIC ABBOUD. COURTESY GALERIE CLAUDE LEMAND, PARIS/COURTESY ART DUBAI. COURTESY CECILE B EVANS. COURTESY PIERO ATCHUGARRY GALLERY. AKM-GSI/SPLASH NEWS/PAULO WHITAKER/REUTERS/CORBIS. PANGEIA DE DOIS.

DUBAI: The DIFC, the uptown fnancial area, is home to some of the city’s highend galleries and has developed a tradition of exhibition openings and street events during the fair. It’s worth visiting on 16 March for the DIFC Galleries Night, just don’t expect much in the way of powerful or gritty art – it’s mostly safe corporate art and champagne receptions. Those in the know go to the other end of Dubai, to the shabbier but more charming Creekside district with its narrow streets, cheap hotels, dive bars and the city’s more colourful characters. Here you’ll fnd frazzled Art Dubai staffers letting their hair down at 2am in Club Africana or a Tate curator chowing down on grilled seafood at Jumeirah’s beachfront shack Bu Qtair. Previous spread: 1. ‘I Like America’ (2007) by Mounir Fatmi at Art Dubai, 2013. 2. Os Gêmeos (Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo) at Revere Hotel, Boston, 2012. 3. ‘Shield Wrap 2’ (2014) by Lauren Seiden. 4. The Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo where SP-Arte takes place. This spread: 1. The Madinat Jumeirah resort, host of Art Dubai. 2. A work by Pascale Marthine Tayou at Art Dubai, 2014. 3 & 4. Yto Barrada and her work ‘Reprendre Casa. Carrières centrales, Casablanca, fig. 16’ (2013). 5. Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in São Paulo. 6. Michael Stipe. 7. Beatriz Milhazes in front of her work ‘Winter Love’ (2010). 8. ‘Season II’ (1959) by Shafic Abboud. 9. ‘What a Feeling’ (2014) by Cécile B Evans. 10. ‘To Mario Pedrosa’ (1953) by Alexander Calder. 11. ‘Atmosphere Chromoplastique N.588’ (1985) by Luis Tomasello. 12. DIFC Art Nights at Art Dubai, 2013. 13. Bar da Dona Onça, São Paulo. 14. Absolut Art Bar, Art Dubai. 15. Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. 16. Dasha Zhukova. 17. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum and Antonia Carver, director of Art Dubai. 18. Kate Moss at SP-Arte, 2013. 19. Performance by Parangolés at SP-Arte, 2014.

SÃO PAULO: The fair mobilizes the whole of the art circuit in town, so head downtown to fnd artists, curators and savvy collectors at alternative exhibition spaces such as Phosphorus (visited in the past by Hans Ulrich Obrist) with its tiny cafe-bar that caters to interesting types, and Pivô in the renowned Copan building designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Then hit the neighbouring Bar da Dona Onça for caipirinhas, spinach dumplings and pasteis, or the new Mexican restaurant La Central. For more traditional types, the Baretto restaurant in the Hotel Fasano is a favourite with the glitterati. Don’t miss architect Lina Bo Bardi’s former residence, Casa de Vidro, an impressive modernist glass building surrounded by tropical gardens. Also visit Sesc Pompéia, another architectural icon; it’s an events space designed by Bo Bardi, where there’s a Marina Abramovic´ show (until 10 May) put together by Jochen Volz of the Serpentine Galleries in London who is also the curator of the 2016 Bienal de São Paulo.

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DUBAI: It seems as if everyone is going to a party, coming from a party, texting to see if you were at the party or, if it wasn’t great, which other party to go to. With some shrewd planning and adept networking, you can get into the parties that matter: the all-important Jumeirah Patrons’ Preview party on 17 March at the Madinat Jumeirah, where there’ll be an Art Bar by Absolut designed by Yazan Khalili and just about every VIP worth mentioning – such as Homeira Goldstein, Lekha Poddar, Caisa and Åke Skeppner and Fatima Maleki – will be present. Plus, catch up with those same VIPs, now decidedly bleary, a few days later for the fnal hurrah of the offcial closing party on 20 March. You can also try for the Design Days Dubai opening reception, Art Nights @ Gate Village in DIFC, and Galleries Night at Alserkal Avenue – and, if you are lucky, Canvas magazine’s annual Collectors Dinner. SÃO PAULO: Many private collections in São Paulo are hung in the collectors’ homes, and the SP-Arte VIP programme can arrange visits. As for private parties, attended by the likes of Pedro Barbosa and Waldick Jatobá, the best way to fnd out about them is at museum and gallery openings on the Monday and Tuesday preceding SP-Arte – it’s all about keeping an ear to the ground. On the Monday, ‘Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today’ (organized by the Guggenheim in New York) opens at MAM, and on the Tuesday you can hop between venues such as Galeria Luisa Strina, Luciana Brito Galeria and White Cube, whose own much-hyped bash should be on that night.

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An artful take on the spring collections. Photography by DAMON BAKER Styling by SORAYA DAYANI

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Locations: (previous spread) Museib Amirov’s studio; and (this spread) Elnur Babayev’s studio.

PREVIOUS PAGE. Dungarees and shirt by ASHISH. Leather socks and sandals by JIL SANDER. OPPOSITE. Blouse and skirt by JILL STUART. Bangle by BEN-AMUN. Shoes by ROBERTO CAVALLI. THIS PAGE. Dress by EMILIO PUCCI. Necklace by MAWI.

Locations: (this page) MoMA Baku with Space (Balance) (1999) by Teymur Rustamov in background; and (opposite) Elnur Babayevâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio.

THIS Top THISbyPAGE. PAGE. VANESSA BRUNO. Earrings, top and skirt by PRADA.

OPPOSITE. Dress by TIA CIBANI. Shoes by ROBERTO CAVALLI.

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Dress and necklace by A F VANDERVORST. Rings by ALICE WAESE. Shoes by CHANEL.

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Locations: (previous spread) Elnur Babayev’s studio; and (this spread) Museib Amirov’s studio.

OPPOSITE. Blouse by AWAVEAWAKE. Cape by A DETACHER. THIS PAGE. Dress by MARA HOFFMAN. Necklace and bracelets by WXYZ. Leather socks and sandals by JIL SANDER.

Locations: (this page) Elnur Babayevâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio, and (opposite) the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house.

OPPOSITE. Jumpsuit, bracelet and shoes by CHANEL. THIS PAGE. Shirt and trousers by PAUL & JOE. Hat from Baku market. Ring by MEGA MEGA. Shoes and socks by PRADA.

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Dress by ANGELO BRATIS. Bag by WXYZ. Earrings by AURELIE BIEDERMANN. Bracelets by MEGA MEGA. Leather socks by JIL SANDER. Shoes by DIOR.

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Location, this spread and previous: MoMA Baku. In background (this page), Paradise Garden (2003) by Bahram Khalilov; and (opposite) Composition (2008) by Farhad Khalilov.

THIS PAGE. Top and skirt by PRABAL GURUNG. Earrings, ring and bracelet by MAWI.

OPPOSITE. Shirt, skirt, leather socks and sandals by JIL SANDER. Necklace by JENNIFER FISHER.

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Hair JOSE QUIJANO using CATWALK by TIGI. Make-up NICKY WEIR at SARAH LAIRD using MAC. Model REBECCA MARCOS. Fashion assistant CAROLINE WARD. Art director DAREN ELLIS. Producer MARIA WEBSTER. Special thanks to MUSEIB AMIROV and ELNUR BABAYEV, and to KHAYYAM ABDINOV, executive director of MoMA.

Shoes that weigh you, jackets that charge your laptop and bags that play music – welcome to the future, as imagined by will.i.am. The Black Eyed Peas frontman tells us why there’s nothing cooler than tech. Words by LAURA ARCHER Illustrations by ALESSANDRO MONACO

t’s Saturday night in Baku and the scene backstage at the Crystal Hall is one of frenetic activity. The Adrenalin Festival – a night of dance music from a variety of performers – has kicked off to the roar of an appreciative crowd and the exposed air-conditioning units vibrate to the bass coming from the arena. Redfoo – he of the giant hair from American EDM rapper duo LMFAO – bounces past me on his way to the stage and actor Rick Yune, of Die Another Day and The Fast and the Furious, comes over to ask me if he can use the socket by my feet to charge his phone. A giant infatable zebra appears from a room opposite. Nicole Scherzinger arrives in a furry of sequins – red ones on her hitop trainers, black on her baggy trousers – and steams through to her dressing room to prepare for her performance, trailing stylists and make-up artists in her wake. But the rushing around comes to an immediate halt when the festival’s headliner appears. Some people have the ability to still a room with their presence, and will.i.am is one of them.

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Will.i.am – born William Adams, in Los Angeles in 1975 – is best known as the founder and frontman of multi-Grammy Award-winning The Black Eyed Peas. He has also released four solo albums, produced records for the likes of Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and U2, and performed for President Obama and Queen Elizabeth II. That’s quite a CV for someone who strolls in without any entourage, a bag that doubles as a portable speaker slung over his shoulder, and poses happily for selfes with Redfoo and the other artists on the bill. The bag is a clue as to what brings me here to speak to him. Although Will is best known for selling out stadiums worldwide and topping the album charts, in the background he has also quietly become something of a poster boy for science and tech. “The world doesn’t need another musician,” he has said in the past, “it needs another Bill Gates.”

In 2009 he founded i.am.angel, a not-for-proft foundation that provides scholarships and champions every child’s right to a good education in STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and maths). In 2012 he donated more than half a million pounds to The Prince’s Trust to fund education, training and enterprise schemes with a focus on technology. He served as director of creative innovation for Intel until 2013, judges a US-wide robotics competition and has developed a recycling initiative for Coca-Cola. And now he’s set to steal a march on Apple by creating the frst viable smartwatch. The launch of Puls, as the device is known, is what I am here to talk to Will about. Puls is, it turns out, not actually

this merging of style with tech. “Her bracelet there,” he says, nodding at the slender Hermès bangle on the publicist’s wrist, “that is the perfect shape. That’s what Puls was based on, that sensibility. Not a watch.” He points at the chunky watch somebody else is sporting. “This is a totally different world to that,” he says, swinging back to the Hermès bracelet again. “You can do more in that world [Hermès] than that world [wristwatch].” While wearable technology has yet to persuade the critics – the soon-to-be-launched and ask him why I need one in my life. He looks me up and down. “Be kind!” I plead. “To each his own, right?” he says. “I need that bag because it’s sound. I don’t necessarily need to carry around any other accessories besides the bag itself to project louder sound.” So it’s about making people’s lives more effcient and more streamlined? “It’s about flling in the holes,” he explains. “For example, she has a bag there…” – he singles out the publicist again, this time highlighting her Prada handbag – “and that bag does nothing but carry her stuff. But it doesn’t carry her digital stuff. It doesn’t provide her with any power; it doesn’t provide her with

Above: The Black Eyed Peas with their Grammy Award in 2005. Top: the Puls.

a watch, but rather a “smart cuff”. Yes, there’s a clock function, but it also makes calls, texts, tweets, posts to Facebook and Instagram, emails, plays music and video, searches the internet and so on, all with the help of a virtual assistant called AneedA (a play on “I need a…”). He shows me all this on one of the two Puls cuffs that he is wearing, swiping through tiny screen after tiny screen. It’s impressive, and I ask for a closer look. He clasps one around my wrist – not the diamond-encrusted model, funnily enough – and it’s surprisingly light. The trick lies in the way it’s been engineered, so that the battery and hardware are wrapped all the way around the band to spread its weight evenly and keep its sleek appearance. “Fashionology” is the term Will uses for

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Apple model will no doubt further fuel the debate – Will is convinced that this is where we are headed: bags that play music, jackets that charge laptops, shoes that tell you how much you weigh so that your watch can create a more effective workout programme for you. “The future looks like that,” he says, pointing back at the publicist – or, rather, at her leather biker jacket. “Her jacket will do everything. You’re no longer gonna see the technology; it’s gonna jump.” But do we really want connectivity from our clothes? I gesture at his speaker bag

any sound. But she’s lugging it around. So when I see that bag, I think of an incomplete object that carries yesterday’s goods and is ineffcient in dealing with today’s and tomorrow’s goods.” It’s a seductive idea and surely if anyone can make wearable tech appeal to the masses, it’s will.i.am. How did he get involved? He shrugs. “I saw a hole in the culture of fashion and technology and I wanted to fll it. For me it’s important to take advantage of the opportunity to fll a void.” This philosophy of spotting a niche and not being afraid

to move in where others perhaps haven’t thought to has, in essence, underpinned his whole career to date – whether that’s creating marketing partnerships to take The Black Eyed Peas from an LA band to a global superstar brand, or teaming up with Nasa to stream the frst song from Mars – the song he wrote was called, fttingly enough, ‘Reach for the Stars’. In a similar vein, he cites his favourite childhood book as The Little Engine That Could, a classic frst published in 1930, with its determinedly

I SAW A HOLE IN THE CULTURE OF FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY AND I WANTED TO FILL IT IT. FFOR OR ME IT’S IMPORTANT TO TAKE ANTAGE OF THE ADVANTAGE OPPORTUNITY TO FILL A VOID.

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optimistic refrain, “I think I can, I think I can”. He grew up in a rough ghetto in Los Angeles but the city’s Magnet programme allowed him to attend a prestigious school in an affuent neighbourhood. Rather than making him bitter, seeing wealth made him dream, he says. He realized there was another way to live and went after it, all guns blazing. Having duly acquired wealth for himself, he wants to use it to help others escape from similarly tough beginnings. “I have to send the ladder back down,” he said poignantly at the offcial launch of Puls in San Francisco a week before we meet. But he sees through the transient nature of fame and instead encourages kids to put their energy into building and making things – things that will last. Scientists, in Will’s world, are the true rock stars. “Geeks are the most revolutionary, powerful community on the planet,” he asserts. “They have the ability to materialize ideas by utilizing today’s tools. I would hate to piss a geek off!” While the debut model of Puls is only available via an online application process, version two will be in stores later this year. The pace is impressive. “There’s a new level that I want to go to,” he says. “Instead of surrounding myself with awesome songwriters and people who understand musical theory, I want to surround myself with developers, and a different type of brand marketer, people who understand the power of free. Because free is… ‘free’ is bigger than ‘fee’. Instagram, WhatsApp – those things are free and they have more money, or they’re valued at higher levels, than certain governments. It’s crazy, actually, if you think about it. So that’s the whole new level, and a whole new realm of thinking and dreaming.” Do you ever switch off, I ask, mentioning the current fad for digital detoxes – unplugging from the technology that threatens to overwhelm us. There’s a long pause while he considers the concept. “What’s the best way to put it… Some people search the web and use social platforms for rubbish. And that’s cool, because for them, that’s an escape from reality,”

GEEKS ARE THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY, POWERFUL COMMUNITY ON THE PLANET. THEY JUST HAVE THE ABILITY TO MATERIALIZE IDEAS BY UTILIZING TODAY’S TOOLS. he says. “Then there are those who use the internet to materialize impossible things and make them possible. The digital world is just a physical manifestation of one’s mind and if those people weren’t on the internet, they would be thinking about those things anyway, right? Because when you have those types of ideas, there is no way to detox – you cannot escape from the bombardment of ideas and inspiration. You go to sleep, you’re dreaming about it. You’re materializing and manifesting those things in your dreams, right?” He is suddenly intensely passionate and it’s clear he’s speaking from experience. “No matter what it is, you can’t escape it,” he continues. “Some people could say that’s unfortunate. I say it’s a gift. For me, that’s an awesome thing. It’s not been good for relationships, though, I can tell you that,” he says unexpectedly, breaking into a hearty chuckle, at which point the publicist snaps to attention n and immediately signals the end of the interview. “And on that bombshell…” I say, half to myself, but Will hears me and plays along. “Wait a second,” he says, putting on a funny voice, pretending he’s about to give me a scoop. “You know w what would be really awesome e right now?” and he laughs again as he wanders off to prepare for his set. The next time I see him he is manning the decks centre stage in the vast Crystal Hall, whipping the crowd up like a master puppeteer. He opens his set with ‘Dreamin’ About the Future’, the track written for his collaboration with Lexus. The line, “Excuse me while I dream,” echoes repeatedly around the throbbing arena. Dreaming has brought him this far; who knows where it could take him next?

Will.i.am with (1) Britney Spears in the video for ‘Scream & Shout’; (2) Michael Jackson; (3) Lady Gaga; (4) Rihanna; (5) The Edge and Bono of U2, and Justin Bieber; (6) Barack Obama; (7) the Queen and Kylie Minogue at the Diamond Jubilee concert, Mino 2012; (8) astronaut Leland Melvin at Nasa ffor the launch of ‘Songs from Mars’, 2012; (9) the Prince of Wales; and (10) Justin Bieber in the vide video for ‘That Power’.

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Shirin Neshat in her New York studio, this year.

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Iranian-American flmmaker and artist Shirin Neshat creates works that are both politically charged and enthrallingly beautiful. We visit her at home in New York where she tells us about her intriguing life, and a new show in Baku. Words by MARK C. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;FLAHERTY Portraits by JESSE FROHMAN

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edge of the sidewalk. “She’s very old. We’ve had her for 12 years, and she’s family.” Neshat has a studio just around the corner, but she’s working at home, writing while caring for the dog. She’s lived in this part of the city with her partner since 2000, and in the US longer than she has lived in Iran. She left her home country to study in Los Angeles in 1974. After the Islamic Revolution, effectively stranded in the US, she moved to New York in 1983 and worked at Storefront Art and Architecture, an alternative arts hub. While very much a part of the New York arts community, she felt frustrated by any attempts to make her own work until the early 1990s. Looking at the body of work she has produced to date – which is so visually striking and works on such a sophisticated level – it’s diffcult to imagine that she

o matter whatever else you see in her work, there’s always beauty. Shirin Neshat, creative nomad and New York City’s most celebrated Iranian artist-inexile, has touched on some profoundly uncomfortable subjects over the past 20 years. In the Women of Allah series (1993–97) – her opening artworld salvo – there were guns and veils partially obscuring faces. The brutality, martyrdom and sensational blood-soaked insanity that defned the Islamic revolution in Iran in the 1970s fed into this seminal black-and-white photography. But there were also poems by contemporary Iranian women poets, inscribed in fne calligraphy across the surface of the prints. Here was an artist, fnding her own voice by creating portraits depicting women who had lost theirs. Dark matter, but stark, elegant and beautiful, too. As she walks her beloved ailing dog slowly along Broome Street in New York’s SoHo, Neshat is immediately identifable by her raven hair, giant earrings and the heavy daub of kohl beneath each eye. “This is probably the end,” says Neshat as she leads her blind pet gently away from the 96 Baku.

Left: Natalie Portman in ‘Illusions & Mirrors’ (2013). Below: photograph from the series ‘Women of Allah’ (1996). Right: still from ‘Women Without Men’ (2009). Far right: still from ‘Passage’ (2001).

ever had any problems. Neshat’s video and flm work is populated by veiled women, crafting balletic attitudes in billowing ground-length black garb, in sweeping landscapes of beaches and deserts. The aesthetic is largely monochrome, invariably minimalist. No surprise, then, that composer Philip Glass approached her to collaborate with him on the short flm Passage (2001). Her work has as much in common with John Cage and Merce Cunningham as it does with the visual language of the modern-day Middle East. But there’s also a wealth of style here: her images wouldn’t look out of place on one of the building-sized billboards in Houston Street, a few blocks north of her home. “Look at that photograph over there,” says Neshat, gesturing across her expansive white loft. “That’s Natalie Portman, in a still from Illusions & Mirrors [Neshat’s 2013 short flm commissioned by Dior].” In the image Portman, dressed in black, appears engulfed by a coastal landscape, running towards the sea, her hair blowing in the wind, witchy and elemental. “I don’t

I DON’T TOUCH THE VEIL ANYMORE. BUT THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO VISUALLY, WITH CHOREOGRAPHY, THAT ARE BOTH CHILLING AND BEAUTIFUL. touch the veil anymore,” says Neshat. “I have exhausted all its possibilities. But there are things you can do visually, with choreography, that are both chilling and beautiful. The way you use fgures in a landscape has a great impact on the audience. It can be pure poetry. A fgure, in a black outft, walking on a beach, in a wide shot, is very beautiful. With that short flm we were exploring the idea of this woman’s madness. I went back to Man Ray, to see how he approached flm. He used glass over the camera to distort the image, and I did the same. It creates wonderful images. Artists need to fnd solutions that aren’t anti-beauty, while reiterating the concept behind their work.” While Shirin Neshat has moved on from the veil, it was omnipresent in her previous work – from the early photographs, through to her award-winning feature flm, Women Without Men, of 2009. And these are increasingly diffcult times for a Muslim artist whose work deals with empowerment in the face of repression. So many visual elements of Islam – especially the veil – are deeply charged for many Westerners, enraged by what they see as being somehow responsible for the recent massacres in Paris or by Boko Haram in Nigeria. “A lot of the religion resonates in me,” explains Neshat, who identifes as Muslim but doesn’t subscribe to daily rituals, describing herself as a “member of the secular Muslim community”. “I love going to the mosque and hearing the Qur’anic chant,” she explains. “The Muslim community is misunderstood. If you say anything, you are labelled an extremist. And I do criticize the West for its arrogance and 97 Baku.

home, then inscribed the answers over the surface of the photographs in fne, meticulously written script. “I felt it was important for the newest contemporary art museum in Baku to welcome the local people,” says Neshat. “The most fascinating thing about the country, for me, is the mix of people – so many languages are spoken, and so many religions are practised, yet there is a sense of harmony. I wanted to pay tribute to the idea of ‘home’.” She intended the images to be both patriotic and spiritual – and these are certainly powerful portraits. Each subject has their hands clasped to their

published in Tehran in 1989 and on which the flm is based, had spent almost fve years in prison in Iran), it has nevertheless been widely seen there. Intellectuals disseminate artworks by technology that the Iranian government cannot control, something that Neshat applauds. “I wonder, in fact, if culture would still be so popular in Iran if it wasn’t such a closed state, and so controlled,” she says. “When I was growing up, women did not study. Now they are all highly educated. It is ironic, but when I lived there, things were more conservative and traditional in a way. Now, everyone goes to college and they have four years where

VIDEO INSTALLATIONS ARE LIKE POEMS. THERE IS A LOT OF ABSTRACTION AND METAPHORS. WITH MOVIES, IT’S LIKE WRITING A NOVEL. IT NEEDS A BEGINNING, MIDDLE AND END. invitation of the Empress Farah Pahlavi to prepare for her portrait. His travelling companion, Bob Colacello – in an interview with The Atlantic – recalls being surprised by “how open the society was, and how modern… it reminded me of Beverly Hills.” The inaugural Yarat show in Baku, ‘The Home of My Eyes’, consists of a group of 55 portraits that refne and distil Neshat’s style in that genre. They have the direct, luminescent, monochrome simplicity of Mapplethorpe, but capture every detail of their subject’s faces. After originally planning to shoot just seven individuals, she expanded it to embrace several generations of Azerbaijanis in an extended series. She also asked each subject to elaborate on what they understood by the concept of 98 Baku.

heart, while the palimpsest of the script over the images brings an almost tribal tattoo quality to their features. “When the people come, they will see their own faces, and their friends’ faces. It felt appropriate. There is nothing about this work that is political. I was inspired by El Greco and the way he painted hands.” Shirin Neshat’s latest feature flm, Women Without Men, is a painterly, allegorical portrait of four very different women living in Tehran during the Britishand American-backed coup in 1953, which won the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion award in 2009 for best director. While it has never been offcially screened in Iran (Shahrnush Parsipur, the author of the banned magical realist book, which was frst

they aren’t in the army, or getting married. Everyone is educated. And Iranian cinema is hugely popular – because of, not despite, the censorship.” Some of Neshat’s most innovative work has been in video art, an often misunderstood medium – it was notable at last year’s Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, which included much video art, that there were many negative remarks from visitors who would rather have seen paintings than pixels. The work of artists such as Bill Viola and Neshat are notable exceptions to this antipathy. Her 1998 work Turbulent was a haunting double-screen work featuring a man singing to camera in front of a large audience, and a woman creating elaborate mesmerizing vocal sounds to an empty auditorium on the other. “When I made Turbulent it was conceptual, but there was total clarity,” she says. “To me, video installations are like poems. There is a lot of abstraction allowed, and metaphors. With movies, it’s like writing a novel. It needs progression – a beginning, middle and end. It also needs character development. I don’t really appreciate it when someone working in flm brings it into

PREVIOUS SPREAD: © SHIRIN NESHAT, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS ARTWORK REALIZED WITH SUPPORT OF DIOR. PHOTOS 12/ALAMY.

over-generalization, and for assuming they are the superior force in the world.” When Neshat went to Baku recently, to start work on what would become the inaugural exhibition at the new Yarat Contemporary Art Space (open from March), she recognized kindred spirits. “I feel comfortable there,” she says. “Many of the people are Muslim, but they aren’t religious in an orthodox way. A lot of people celebrate the same rituals as in Iran – religion is a choice and a private matter.” For a whole generation the perception of Iran has been coloured entirely by the Islamic revolution of 1979, which changed the way of life for its people profoundly. As the world’s frst modern Islamic state, Iran closed its doors culturally, and quashed all of the liberal attitudes that had been the norm before. The chain of events began in the 1950s, when the British and Americans supported a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh’s government, inadvertently preparing the ground for the establishment of strict Islamic values that would follow. But Iran had long been a different place. While Neshat’s work could never have been shot, flmed or screened in Iran today, back in the pre-revolutionary era, in 1976, that icon of the decadent West, Andy Warhol, travelled there at the

DAVID FISHER/REX. VITTORIO ZUNINO CELOTTO/GETTY © SHIRIN NESHAT, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS. LARRY BURNS.

the gallery, or when someone makes extended video art for the cinema. They are different languages. For me, it’s about meeting cinema half way. I am mimicking cinema. I am seduced by the idea of narrative.” Neshat’s current project is a flm, provisionally titled Voice of Egypt, based on the life of the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum, who began her career disguised as a boy. Kalthoum died in 1975 but is a fgure who still resonates with all the power of a legend across the Middle East. She was an enigma, yet a superstar. The attraction for Neshat – an artist drawn to questions of female identity, voice and achievement – is obvious. “She became a myth,” she explains. “She deprived the people of any details about herself. She was a loner. She surrounded herself with men, yet she loved women. In

my small little world, I also surround myself with men to create my work, and in some ways, women become masculinized in order to become accepted – they sacrifce their romantic or family life.” While the original plan for the story was to create something akin to a straightforward Hollywood biopic, Neshat changed direction. Now the flm will explore the contemporary obsession with Kalthoum via the experience of an Iranian woman visiting Egypt to make a flm of her life, alongside the young woman who is playing the role of the late singer. It is the most selfrefexive piece that Neshat has worked on to date. The flm looks certain to create a new audience for Oum Kalthoum, as well as Neshat herself. Kalthoum is something of a paradigm for Neshat’s obsessions – she was at once Evita, Madonna, Dusty Springfeld and woman shaman. “Her music threw people into a state of ecstasy,” says Neshat. “People lost all sense of time and place when they listened to her. It was like drugs. For someone who was so stoic and emotionally controlled and refrained from expression herself – to do that to other people was extraordinary.” Neshat’s own career continues to be extraordinary, too. From photography to collaborations in performance, opera and video installation, and her ambitious feature flm projects, she may be a creative nomad and forever an artist in exile, but her work speaks to the whole world.

Opposite, from top: ‘Women Without Men’ exhibition, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2011; Shirin Neshat receives the Silver Lion for best director for ‘Women Without Men’ at the Venice Film Festival, 2009; Neshat in her New York studio, 2015. This page, from top: ‘Untitled’ (1996); still from ‘Rapture’ (1999). 99 Baku.

This page: raw ingredients for areshta plov. Opposite: plov with Caspian kutum fsh stuffed with levengi (with barbaris, sumac, walnuts, onions and sour alycha plums), and kyukyu (a baked diamond-shaped accompaniment made from walnuts, onions, eggs, sumac and other spices).

ou don’t get very far as a foreigner in Azerbaijan without being asked if you like the local cuisine. The answer is almost certainly a resounding ‘yes’ as Azerbaijan – with its bounty of organic produce and lush valleys – is a treat for the culinary adventurer. The Roman geographer Strabo knew this. About 2,000 years ago he applauded the fertility of Azerbaijan's central region, noting that “the plain as a whole is better watered by its rivers than Babylonia and Egypt”. Novruz – the feast of spring and the arrival of New Year – is an especially good time for foodies to visit. Celebrated in Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus on 21 March, or a day either side depending on the spring equinox, festive feasts are central to the holiday. Tables across Azerbaijan groan under the weight of piles of steaming pilafs, or plov, a rich, hearty and varied conglomeration of meat or fsh served with jewel-coloured fruit, vegetables and herbs, such as prunes, raisins, chestnuts, onions, carrots, garlic and saffron. Seemingly immune from outside infuences and food fads, this deliciously rich and flling rice dish has been served throughout the region for hundreds of years. Legend 100 Baku.

In Azerbaijan, the spring equinox has always marked the beginning of the new year, or Novruz. And it continues to be celebrated today with feasts based on a centuries-old rice dish known as plov.

Photography by RICHARD HAUGHTON Styling by TOM WOLFE Words by CAROLINE EDEN

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has it that Alexander the Great fed his armies on plov after ordering his cooks to come up with an easy-to-make, satisfying meal for the troops, which they did by adapting local dishes, including plov. It became the ultimate campaign dinner – wholesome and cooked in a portable pot. Today, it is eaten everywhere in Central Asia and across the Caucasus. It is a national obsession in Uzbekistan, where men pride themselves on their ability to prepare the most extravagant plov. There, the most skilled chefs serve up to 1,000 people from a single kazan (cauldron) during weddings and holidays. Travellers have long noted the qualities of plov and its hallowed place in Central Asian culture. Armin Vámbéry, in his 1865 book Travels in Central Asia, wrote how plov was prepared to welcome the arrival of the Emir to Samarkand: “the ‘princely pilow’ [plov]… consisted of a sack of rice, three sheep chopped to pieces, a large pan of sheep’s fat (enough to make … fve pounds of candles), and a small sack of carrots…” Thankfully the plov prepared in Azerbaijan in modern times for festivals such as Novruz is a more restrained affair. That’s not to say that it is a simple dish, as in fact there are hundreds of variations. Plovs can be prepared to suit all tastes, and can also be vegetarian. In Azerbaijani cuisine, the plov rice can be presented with side dishes so that the guest can combine whatever favour he or she

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The oldest and most spectacular plov of all, and one reserved for special occasions only, involves stuffng and cooking a whole lamb. Fruits such as raisins and dried apricots (far left) are caramelized, mixed with rice and spices and then stuffed into the lamb, which is cooked slowly in a tandir (below left). The result (centre) is a rich and flling dish with a typical balance of spice and sweetness.

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chooses. It is often said that there are as many different kinds of plov as there are people who cook it. Like plov itself, Novruz is a multifaceted celebration, and there are many traditions associated with the festival. One involves torches being lit to purify the home. Eventually, the ashes are buried outside the village in the belief that the past failures of the household are buried with them. Another Novruz ceremony is the cooking of samani, or wheatgrass, as a symbol of fertility. Traditionally prepared by the women of the house, it is presented alongside the plov in the centre of the table on a giant silver or copper platter. Feasting lasts long into the night, with doors left unlocked and lights left on to welcome visitors to mark the New Year. The Novruz table, and the plov presented on it, varies across the different regions of Azerbaijan. In Baku there are two notable varieties. Ashgara plov made with chestnuts, onions, lamb, caramelized quince and sultanas, and areshta plov. The latter is heavier, made with rice, pasta, Azerbaijani beans (similar to puy lentils) and saffron, as well as crispy sheets of paper-thin lavash, which forms a delicious golden crust known as gazmakh. These two – ashgara and areshta – tend to be served together on the same plate. Further afeld, the city of Ganja has its own take on ashgara plov. The usual chestnuts, onions, dried apricots, coriander, grapes and prunes all feature, but lamb is swapped for beef. Also found here is a light paxla plov of white beans, dill and chicken, as well as the heavier and brilliantly green sebzi plov of sorrel, dill, tarragon, leek, scalded greens, onions and beef, served with butter. In the southern town of Lankaran – famous for its subtropical climate and tea – lives Davudov Gysniyar, a celebrated chef who holds the secrets of many rare plovs, including the legendary recipe for levengi plov. This has Caspian kutum fsh – specifcally the plump female – as a main ingredient, which he stuffs with a levengi flling of barberries, sumac, salt, black pepper, walnuts, onions and sour alycha. Three types of rice are then baked with the dish – plain rice, rice infused with various greens, and rice mixed 104 Baku.

This page: pumpkin plov prepared by southern Azerbaijan's pre-eminent chef, Davudov Gysniyar.

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There is a huge range of plov recipes in the region, including (opposite, clockwise from top) a fruit plov (meyve) with apples, peaches and quince; levengi plov with chicken plus kyukyu; paxla plov with white beans, dill and chicken from the town of Ganja; and an ashgara plov cooked especially for Novruz with chestnuts, alycha, apricots, kishmish grapes, prunes, onions and beef. Fish is also used for plov, such as the levengi plov (this page) featuring Caspian kutum fsh, with a levengi stuffng of barbaris, sumac, walnuts, onions and sour alycha and served with three types of rice â&#x20AC;&#x201C; plain, with dill, and with paxla (dried beans).

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with beans. Levengi is native to Lankaran, as is this plov, making it the dish to seek out in this attractive seaside town. Alternative versions include pumpkin plov and shakh plov (saffron, dried apricots, golden raisins, walnuts, and gazmakh). To sample the most splendid plov of all, though, we have to return to Baku, this time to the much-loved Orman restaurant where a plov reserved for only very special occasions is cooked – much to the delight of diners – inside a whole lamb. This plov is as ancient as it is impressive. First cooked in the 16th century, the method has only changed slightly over time. To begin with, caramelized raisins, dried apricots, chestnuts and quince are mixed into steamed rice. A prize lamb is rubbed and seasoned with a generous helping of salt and paprika. Then the magic happens: the whole lamb is stuffed with the plov mixture and cooked in a tandir. It is baked twice – once steamed and once in foil – for an hour and a half. When ready, the plov is served, steaming and laden with pieces of tender lamb. Coming out of hundreds of years of tradition, this extraordinary plov is the epitome of Azerbaijan’s culinary customs and complex rituals.

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Far left: pomegranates and (below) fsinjan plov made with beef, pomegranate seeds and walnuts. Centre: Lankaran black tea. Right: cherry plov with beef and (below) brown and white Lankaran rice.

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This page: ashgara plov from Ganja with chestnuts, alycha, dried apricots, kishmish grapes, prunes, onions, beef. Opposite, clockwise from top left: a variation of ashgara plov; sebzi plov with schavel, dill, tarragon, leek, scalded greens, onions, chicken and lots of butter; and two homemade experimental plovs, one with torn chicken and pomegranate seeds, and a vegetarian one with greens, tarragon and grilled green peppers.

Producer MARIA WEBSTER. Special thanks to SHAMSADDIN HUSEYNOV at ORMAN RESTAURANT, BAKU; VUGAR HEYBATOV & ASLAN GAFLANOV at SHIRVANSHAH MUZEY-RESTORAN, BAKU; DAVUDOV GYSNIYAR & PALMALIFE HOTEL, LANKARAN; HAJIYEV SANAN ZAHID & IMPERIAL RESTAURANT, GANJA.

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Top: Alexander McQueen photographed in 1997. Above and opposite: views of the ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2011. Right: Jellyfsh ensemble and Armadillo shoes at McQueen’s ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ show for s/s 2010, Paris.

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Fashion exhibitions such as ‘Savage Beauty’ are clearly no longer a niche interest. Now, they are up there with the fne-art blockbusters – the Matisses and the Turners, unmissable if you want to keep up with the latest dinner-party chatter. The London showing of ‘Savage Beauty’ is not just the fashion event of the spring, it’s a cultural landmark. Along with the pieces included in the original exhibition, there will be an additional gallery exploring McQueen’s development as a designer in London and a ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ gallery with fetishistic accessories. It’s set to be a spectacle for the senses – the V&A has worked

PAUL ZIMMERMAN/WIREIMAGE/ANDREW H. WALKER/GETTY. © MARC HOM/TRUNK ARCHIVE. COURTESY THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE. LAUREN GREENFIELD/INSTITUTE.

f you’re in South Kensington, London this spring, don’t be surprised to see a lengthy queue snaking along the side of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). The reason for those hordes? ‘Savage Beauty’, the Alexander McQueen retrospective exhibition, will be on. Originally staged at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2011, the year after McQueen’s death, ‘Savage Beauty’ was a monster of a show. During its three-month run, more than 660,000 visitors came through the doors. Demand saw the museum lengthen the exhibition’s run by a week and implement extended opening hours, with tickets selling at a premium. The true effect was evident in revenue – more than 23,000 people signed up for museum memberships during the run, and merchandise in the store, including armadillo-shoe ornaments, sold out several times. By the time ‘Savage Beauty’ had fnished in New York, it had not only been the museum’s most successful fashion exhibition, but its eighth most popular show of all time – not bad when you consider other entries include the treasures of Tutankhamun and the Mona Lisa. The V&A has already seen similar demand in London, with 30,000 tickets sold by mid-January, two months before the exhibition opens. It has released a further 50,000, increased the run by two weeks and will have extended hours, too. Those long queues are inevitable.

As the Alexander McQueen show at the V&A in London looks set to break records, fashion and art are becoming more closely entwined than ever. Words by LAUREN COCHRANE

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1. The entrance to the ‘Esprit Dior, Miss Dior’ exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris, 2013. 2 & 3. Installation shots of ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’ at The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, 2014. 4. Tulle and lace dress with veil and antlers by McQueen for his show ‘Widows of Culloden’, a/w 2006–07, at Paris Fashion Week. 5. Work by Polly Apfelbaum at the opening of ‘Esprit Dior, Miss Dior’, Grand Palais, Paris, 2013. 6. View of the ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2011.

with Gainsbury & Whiting, who produced McQueen’s catwalk shows, to ensure his original spirit comes through. One highlight will doubtless be a re-creation of the Kate Moss hologram seen on the catwalk in 2006. According to Sonnet Stanfll, fashion curator at the V&A, it’s these show-stopping moments that take the exhibition to the next level. “It wasn’t like a traditional fashion exhibition,” she says on the appeal of the Met show. “There was a scholarship element, but also a sensory vision that was delightful.” Stanfll believes this has been stepped up for version two of ‘Savage Beauty’. “This exhibition is immersive,” she says. “It takes you away from the V&A. That’s where exhibitions are going, I think. Once the bar has been raised, it’s hard to go back to an object in a case.” 114 Baku.

announcement went viral, I realized it was what we had been waiting for,” says Joanna Hashagen, Bowes Museum’s keeper of fashion and textiles. “People will come for the day, I think, and stay for the scenery.” While the world-famous name of a designer such as Saint Laurent will get her so far, it’s Hashagen’s job to take it further by telling the story in a new way. “I don’t think people realize the infuence he’s had on how we dress,” she says. “You can still see it on the high street today. We just accept the trouser suit today, but he made that happen.” The popularity of fashion exhibitions has risen alongside our desire to gain a

BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/GETTY FOR DIOR PARFUMS. BROOKE HOLM/COURTESY THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA. JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE. FIRSTVIEW.

Other fashion exhibitions this summer are attempting to siphon off some of the ‘Savage Beauty’ buzz. The ‘Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier’ retrospective lands at the Grand Palais in Paris in April, and will bring its all-singing, all-dancing presentation – complete with 3-D projections, flms and celebrity kudos – to the city. Innovative reassessment of longneglected talents is another way to stand out. A retrospective of Jeanne Lanvin’s work opened in Paris’s Palais Galliera on 8 March, curated by the brand’s current artistic director, Alber Elbaz. And the Fashion and Textile Museum in London currently has an exhibition bringing Thea Porter, a pioneer of bohemian style, to a new generation using reconstructions of her atelier to evoke the spirit of the city in the 1970s. The other UK exhibition vying for attention is ‘Style is Eternal’, the frst British retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent, which opens at the Bowes Museum in Teesdale, north-east England, in July. The fact that Fondation Pierre BergéYves Saint Laurent, which oversees the designer’s work, chose a regional museum – admittedly a French-style chateau surrounded by hillside – rather than one in the capital is a priceless boost. “When the

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fashion education beyond what trends are in this season. Thanks to the internet, fashion – a once-closed industry – is now open to all who show a passing interest in it. The latest Chanel couture outing or what Christopher Bailey at Burberry has taken from the Bloomsbury Group of the early 20th century is just a click away. Exhibitions of the past that have refected this kind of interest, even instigated it, include everything from the enchanting Miss Dior fragrance exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2013 to the quirky Paul Smith retrospective at the Design Museum in London in the same year. “There’s a

FASHION IS AN ACCESSIBLE DESIGN MEDIUM RELATING TO THE HIGH STREET IN A WAY THAT ART ISN’T. public appetite for it,” says Amber Butchart, associate lecturer at the London College of Fashion. “It’s now much easier to engage in fashion dress, and that’s increased the public’s literacy when it comes to fashion.” Alistair O’Neill, senior research fellow at London’s Central Saint Martins and curator of the Somerset House exhibitions on

Isabella Blow and Valentino, agrees. “Fashion is a facet of popular culture that everyone can understand. We all think ‘What am I going to wear?’ each morning,” he says. “Someone who’s not necessarily going to see a Martin Creed exhibition is not threatened by fashion. It comes down to a base thing – ‘I’d wear that’, ‘I wouldn’t wear that’.” Josephine Chanter, who is head of communications at the Design Museum, sees fashion as “an accessible design medium relating to the high street in a way that art doesn’t. You can actually see something in a museum and then go and buy a version of it.” Hashagen has made this connection 115 Baku.

quite explicitly. Her fashion galleries, relaunched in 2011, took direct infuence from the boutiques of Bond Street. “A journalist compared it to window shopping, which was the best compliment I could have received,” she says. With the popularity of these exhibitions clearly quantifable, the motivation for institutions is great. Fashion exhibitions do consistently well at the V&A; its ‘Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945–2014’ pulled in more than 130,000 visitors, compared with, say, ‘Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700–1900’, which had 77,000 through the door. The Design Museum’s two most popular exhibitions ever were the Paul Smith and Christian Louboutin (2012)

PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PURE MARKETING AND REAL CONTENT BY BEING DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN THE STORYTELLING. retrospectives. “They are able to fll their programmes with flms, talks and other things that will be popular in a way that a series on, say, contemporary sculpture might not,” says Aleksandra Szymanska, visual trends analyst at The Future Laboratory. “They can then do more traditional shows on the side.” And, with new visitors coming for the fashion, the thinking is that they might well stay for everything else the museum has to offer. Presenting a brand’s clothes as art – or at least presenting them in an art context – can potentially be a problem. But O’Neill believes, with fashion a commercial business, that this bind comes with the territory. “There’s been lots of criticism in the past when brands get involved in staging 1.

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2. their own exhibitions – such as Armani fnancing their retrospective, or Marc Jacobs and Katie Grand involved in the Louis Vuitton show in Paris,” he says. “But I believe in fashion as a commercial and cultural entity, and I want to be able to speak both languages.” For the brands involved, the obvious prestige of presenting their heritage in a museum context is a great marketing exercise. But, as Benoit Duverger, a senior consultant to Pringle of Scotland, says, consumers are savvy, and therefore all showcases have to feel authentic and valid within a cultural context. “It’s all about underlining our heritage by bringing it to life,” he says. “People understand the difference between pure marketing and real content by being directly involved in the storytelling.” The knitwear brand has collaborated with high-profle cultural luminaries including Hans

Ulrich Obrist of London’s Serpentine Galleries and choreographer Michael Clark. The exhibition ‘Fully Fashioned: The Pringle of Scotland Story’ at Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland later this year, which celebrates Pringle’s 200th anniversary, has already received interest from galleries in Asia and the US. That alone quietly demonstrates that brandfunded fashion exhibitions are no longer being viewed solely as a marketing vehicle, they are becoming platforms for serious and highly prized content within an institution’s exhibition calendar. But how does the popularism that comes with fashion exhibitions play out in the

© FONDATION PIERRE BERGÉ – YVES SAINT LAURENT/MAURICE HOGENBOOM/ALEXANDRE GUIRKINGER. © VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. ANTHONY CROLLA. STUDIO HARCOURT © PATRIMOINE LANVIN. LUKE HAYES. JIM LEE. KIRSTEN SINCALIR.

art world? Francesca Gavin, visual arts editor at Dazed & Confused and curator of exhibitions at London’s Soho House group, believes these shows demonstrate that attitudes are shifting. “Fashion is sometimes ignored in the art world, not really seen as part of it,” she says. “There’s still a lot of drama and spectacle, but it is getting there. It’s an art version of fashion, designers as artists. This has happened with music and architecture as well – they’re opening up the concept of what art can be.” Of course, the boundaries between fashion and art have been blurring for a while, and the fashion exhibition is the latest example of how the two are becoming closer. “I always think of them as two guests eyeing each other up at a cocktail party,” says Jonathan Openshaw, editor of POSTmatter, an online art and culture magazine. “Art has so many gatekeepers and has viewed fashion as too commercial, while fashion has always been eager to use art as inspiration. I feel like that’s changed.” Openshaw believes some of this comes from fashion’s endorsement of art events and institutions becoming more authentic. He points to the new art gallery in Milan being built by the Fondazione Prada, the recent €100 million-plus, Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the Alexander McQueen brand’s sponsorship of London’s Frieze Art Fair for the past two

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1. Jeanne Lanvin. 2 & 6. Paul Smith at the ‘Hello, My Name is Paul Smith’ exhibition, Design Museum, London, 2013, and the recreation of Smith’s frst shop in Nottingham. 3. Installation view of ‘Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945–2014’, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2014. 4. Thea Porter at home in Mayfair, London, 1971. 5. Porter’s bohemian designs displayed at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London. 7. Yves Saint Laurent, 1964. 8. ‘Mondrian’ day dress, by Yves Saint Laurent, 1965.

years. “The art world can now see that it is possible to have a working relationship between fashion and art that doesn’t mean selling out,” he says. While shows such as ‘Savage Beauty’ are expanding the possibilities, O’Neill sounds a note of caution for the future. He is concerned that the acceleration of popularity could damage the future preservation of fashion history. “Museums and galleries are putting all their money into the temporary exhibitions and not buying anything new for their permanent galleries,” he says, pointing to the recent sale of a pair of original McQueen ‘bumster’ trousers at auction to a private collector rather than to a museum. However, O’Neill also sees that we’re at the start of a journey to somewhere new. “I was visiting the library at the V&A last autumn and would walk past the temporary Constable and Horst exhibitions. The line for Horst [a photographer best known for his images of fashion] was consistently longer despite the fact that Constable is a household name,” he says. “That’s a wake-up call. There’s an appetite for these exhibitions. Where it will lead, I don’t know.” This year may be the year we fnd out.

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Okwui Enwezor, a Nigerian who lives and works in Germany and the US, is the truly international director of the 56th Venice Biennale. Baku meets this year’s most signifcant art-world fgure. Words by DARIUS SANAI Portrait by JUERGEN TELLER

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e’ve lived through a period in the 20th century that was known as the American century, and that really meant something very signifcant in terms of British and American self-image, their own world view, their own sense of power, own sense of economic core and cultural infuence.” Okwui Enwezor is sitting back in his chair in a groundfoor offce in Munich. Books are piled neatly on either side of the desk; outside the window a procession of students walks past, and cyclists whizz along silently. “And today,” he continues, “we are hearing a lot that this is the Asian century: what does that mean? It means that we are really looking at different historical cycles, in which different parts of the world begin to rise to the position of global prominence.” With his clearly enunciated monotone and slightly didactic manner, Enwezor sounds professorial; I half expect to be

given a reading list and an essay theme to write for next week’s class. But Enwezor is an art person, not a politics professor, and for a few months this year, he is perhaps the most important art person of all, as director of the Venice Biennale. The Biennale, which runs from May to November, is the pre-eminent gathering of the art world, the place where dealers, collectors, curators and the world’s ever-growing legion of advisers come across actual artists and ordinary members of the public, in a showcase of what is interesting, different and brilliant about the world’s art. Each Biennale has a new director, who sets a theme. When Enwezor, a Nigerian who made his name both in the US and Europe, was chosen, it was expected that he would propose a globally inclusive theme. He didn’t disappoint: this year the event is titled ‘All the World’s Futures’. Explaining his rationale at an offcial ceremony at the end of 2014, Enwezor said: “The ruptures that surround and abound around every corner of the global landscape today recall the evanescent debris of previous catastrophes piled at the feet of the angel of history in Angelus Novus. How can the current disquiet of our time be properly grasped, made comprehensible, examined, and articulated?” It sounded impressive enough, and certainly Enwezor has built a reputation of using slightly gnarled phraseology, but I also wondered how much of such a premise was intellect and how much the use of complex sentences for the sake of it? (After all, the last sentence of this announcement at the ceremony used four participles when one would have worked just fne.) Would the frst African director of the most important art event in the world – one whose political

to see the reality of what is becoming one of the more eagerly awaited Venice Biennales of recent times. But Enwezor himself gave Baku a pre-Biennale audience at the Haus der Kunst, the Munich contemporary art museum where he has been director since 2011. The Haus der Kunst is a forbidding place. I arrive early, and walk gingerly under a row of giant columns, along a slightly pock-marked terrace, looking for an open door. Eventually I make my way around the building, down a somewhat benighted staircase, and along another terrace whose roof is supported by huge columns of the type you would imagine raining down in some apocalyptic flm, when the end of the world is nigh. As I wonder how to get in to Munich’s most celebrated museum, my eye is drawn upwards to something quite magical.

1. he curated Documenta 11, the most highbrow of all art fairs, in Kassel, Germany in 2002, at the age of 35. “Okwui has been an important force in the art world since he started writing and curating in the mid-1990s,” Matthew Slotover, co-founder and co-director of the Frieze Art Fair, tells Baku. “His Documenta in 2002 helped reshape the debate around art and introduced many excellent artists, photographers and flmmakers to a wider audience. He has a unique and refreshing ability to work across art forms, time periods and cultures.” Another art eminence who knows Enwezor well is Iwona Blazwick, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London. “He has been important in demonstrating the global nature of modern and contemporary art; he has made the case for multiple modernisms, each infected by cultural specifcity,” she explains. “As director of Documenta, he premiered important moving-image work by artists such as Lebanese artist Walid Raad and British flmmaker John Akomfrah, showcasing the so-called ‘archival turn’ in art, whereby artists revisit history, expose its lacunae and tell new stories about the past. It was one of the best editions of this fve-yearly international survey, taking us into extraordinary spaces and immersive environments.” We will have to wait until May 120 Baku.

among the young and beautiful partying set for the P1 nightclub that appeared in its bowels in the 1980s – the only personal memory I have of the building at that time is of a hazy night and an elusive blonde, sometime after the fall of the Berlin Wall. More recently, demonstrating the contradictory nature at the heart of so much contemporary German culture, the fathers of Germany’s most conservative city (and they are, in the main, fathers) decreed that Hitler’s cultural showcase should

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Inserted between each pair of columns is a bamboo stick, just the right length so its tension holds it across the gap. At each end of the sticks is an ornate blue and black Chinese vase held in place against the column’s side. These are high above my head – so high it took a couple of minutes to notice them and work out what they were. I learn later that the installation is by Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most celebrated artists, and the message is clear: the fragile brilliance of mankind will never be destroyed, even by a totalitarian regime. The Haus der Kunst is no ordinary gallery: it was constructed under orders from Adolf Hitler to showcase the art of Nazi Germany. Not the art the Nazis stole from misappropriated collectors, or the ‘degenerate’ art of the Bauhaus, the Surrealists, De Stijl and the likes of Kurt Schwitters that they banned, but the heavy, monumental, imperial art they championed. The building opened to great fanfare and a parade in 1937; inside, there are still swastika mosaics on the ceilings, and, in the archive, pictures of Hitler and his cronies at the opening party. After the war, it fell into partial disuse, better known

THE HAUS DER KUNST IS NO ORDINARY GALLERY: IT WAS CONSTRUCTED UNDER ORDERS FROM ADOLF HITLER TO SHOWCASE THE ART OF NAZI GERMANY. become a museum that would help redefne the city’s place on the world contemporary art scene. Munich already had the highly regarded Pinakothek der Moderne and the Brandhorst Museum, with must-see 20th-century collections, but the Haus der Kunst would become a groundbreaking gallery based on the Kunsthalle model, with no permanent collection of its

MICHAELA REHLER/REUTERS/CORBIS. MAXIMILIAN GEUTER/COURTESY OF HAUS DER KUNST. DAVID BALTZER/ZENIT/HEIKO MEYER/LAIF.

importance transcends the art world – suffer from artitis, the pathological compunction to make the ordinary sound extraordinary? Enwezor was born into an affuent and intellectual family in Nigeria, and moved to New York City when he was 18. He emerged into the cultural consciousness in 1996 when curating a show of African photography at the Guggenheim. But his real catapult to lasting, top-level art-world infuence was when

own, and run by directors and staff who would curate shows of contemporary artists with an international outlook. Enwezor did exactly that last year, with his curated show ‘River of Fundament’, featuring works by the American installation artist Matthew Barney. Sprawling, heavy and disturbing, the works centred on the carcasses of molten and burned-out cars. The museum describes ‘River of Fundament’ as a culmination of years of “intense meditation on death,

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1. Okwui Enwezor’s exhibition ‘In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present’ at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 1996. 2 & 3. Installations on the facade of the Haus der Kunst by Mel Bochner with ‘The Joys of Yiddish’ (2013) and Ai Weiwei with ‘Bamboo and Porcelain’ (2009). 4–6. Installation shots from Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany in 2002, curated by Enwezor including works by Yinka Shonibare, Annette Messager and Ecke Bonk.

rebirth, transformation and transcendence”; although to me it also seemed to paint a dramatic and dark picture of parochial, 20th-century, small-town American society. The show made waves around the art world, and the soaring ceilings and vast, yet boxy, proportions of the Haus der Kunst interior gave it a breathing space many galleries would have failed to deliver. In person, the director of the 56th Biennale is lucid as well as articulate, effortlessly turning his mind (and his sophisticated phraseology) to any topic thrown at him. By way of opening, I ask what it is like to be director at what was Hitler’s 121 Baku.

1. Michelangelo Pistoletto during a performance for the creation of his ‘Twenty-two Less Two’ installation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009. 2 & 3. Works by Thomas Houseago and an installation by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011. 4. Tobias Rehberger’s ‘White Cube’ at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009. 5. Okwui Enwezor, director of the 56th Biennale, in Venice.

art showcase, and am surprised by the answer. “The conventional wisdom that we had to live with for many years, given the history of this building, is that the ideology somehow makes bad architecture, and that the ideology of fascism makes for bad aesthetics in this context for radical forms. I think that in the case of the Haus der Kunst, it’s quite the opposite. For some reason, artists love to show here, and it has to do with the nature of the spaces of the

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ENWEZOR IS ON THE SIDE OF THE SAINTS IN THE ART WORLD: NON-COMMERCIAL, NEVER BUYING OR SELLING FOR PROFIT. gallery, a processional, almost episodic way in which one can navigate this series of spaces, everything that you put inside makes sense. That creates a rationalized way to devise the making of the spaces. In many ways it makes this architecture quite interesting, despite the problematic historical context, and artists have responded to the volumes of the spaces here in ways that I have often found very surprising. I’ve often 122 Baku.

said that works of art look the best in the Haus der Kunst, simply because of how, in contemporary art – which tends to deal a lot with scale – architectural compositions, in terms of installations, seek space. These volumes in the Haus der Kunst make such work look very good – for sculpture and large-scale paintings, for example. “Fascist architecture is not, in itself, always a bad building. Ideologically, yes, it’s very bad, but spatially no, it can also be quite interesting… If you go to today’s new museums, they don’t look as clearly delineated as you will fnd within the context of our own galleries.” It is answers such as this that tell me that Enwezor is more erudite than almost anyone else I have met in the art world. I look up at the high ceiling of his offce, which was built for a senior Nazi, and ask if, nonetheless, he fnds the building’s history inescapable? “I do, and then, very much at the same time, I do not. I sometimes say that buildings have no subjectivity, you can’t endlessly put them on trial. There comes a point at which it’s just a building. It was a building that in its early beginning was compromised by the ideological basis of the Nazi idea of what

are compelling, full of character, and also not compelling for a certain collector. So there are no objective facts that I can apply, outside of the pricing system, of the work as an investment category, that defnes what good art is in this sense. “I tend not to use the idea that I like a work as the reason to include it in an exhibition, because I think that’s really about taste, and that’s what I reserve for my own private circumstances, so ‘I like’ really only applies to things I want to live with, not what I have to show the public, because an exhibition is really to use the space as a platform for a series of propositions and arguments that could be intelligible, to a broader public. “What do I think good art is? I don’t know! I see a lot of things that people collect and the price is up there for them, and I am utterly confounded. I don’t think there is a correlation between the price and how good it is. I’m not in the commercial world so I can’t really advise anybody on consumer art and how that works.” He will spend some time over the next months travelling the world, to countries not internationally celebrated for their

MASSIMO DI NONNO/BARBARA ZANON/MARCO SECCHI/GETTY. ANDREA MEROLA/EPA/CORBIS. MANUEL SILVESTRI/POLARIS/EYEVINE.

makes compelling art, and which makes for the model of artistic imagination that they wanted to support. Be that as it may, we are more than 70 years after the Second World War, and 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the major transformation of this building, so I am interested in facing forward, and not endlessly looking back.” Enwezor is on the side of the saints in the art world: a non-commercial director, curating and inspiring and discovering, but never buying or selling for a proft. Does he think it’s a shame that ordinary people can no longer afford good art? Unsurprisingly, his answer starts analytically; then he reveals another side, an emotion, I hadn’t perceived before. “The question there is ‘What is good art?’ I don’t know. Do you consider this or that as good art? I don’t know. There are different reasons why certain artworks

art, to discover and engage. “I want to go to Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Philippines, Pakistan, Liberia, Mauritania, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia. To see, to observe, what is possible. I’m very curious how imagination can be sustained in places of extreme fragility.” I ask him what he thinks about the current art market. “I don’t understand the economics of it, personally, but there must be an underlying rationale behind the prices. Why is one big photograph more expensive than another – who knows?” This sounds like the director of the Venice Biennale damning the likes of Andreas Gursky, although he didn’t name him personally. “I can’t go demonizing the art market as sometimes is done,” he adds emphatically. “I don’t like the way it functions sometimes, I don’t like the emphasis that is sometimes placed on astronomical prices, because I

think it creates distortions in the way in which we work, and I think it makes it frankly diffcult for museums to be able to organize high-level exhibitions, given the prices that big works fetch. So getting loans for key works for exhibitions becomes almost impossible, the astronomical rise of prices creates a hierarchy of institutions, too, and I am interested in the politics of that. I want to make a discussion happen so that so-called good art does not simply disappear

THE PREMIER ART EVENT IN THE WORLD IS, PARADOXICALLY, THE MOST DEMOCRATIC. into a very narrow reach of major institutions with their private supporters.” The premier art event in the world is also, paradoxically, the most democratic, at least on the surface. All of the art is on show, not on sale; no private galleries or dealers exhibit; anyone can visit, nobody can buy. The reality underneath is slightly different: a visitor mooring their superyacht next to the Giardini on the VIP opening day, fitting between parties held by François Pinault and Bernard Arnault, the French luxury tycoons, and having a quiet word with their dealer about that interesting artist being showcased in the Chilean pavilion, will have a completely different Biennale experience to Mr and Mrs Normal and their small children being dragged through the crowds at the height of August tourist hell. But still: no dollar signs are on display, and the art does not disappear off pavilion walls as it does from the stands at Art Basel, held just a few weeks later. At the Biennale, each country has its own pavilion, showcasing a current national artist or artists. Many of the greatest artists of the past 100 years have been chosen 123 Baku.

THERE IS LITTLE THAT ONE HAS TO PROVE IN VENICE. THERE IS NO AGENDA.

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as Azerbaijan with Almagul Menlibayeva and Rashad Alakbarov, and a showing of the ‘Here Today…’ conservationthemed exhibition. However, the director alone is in charge of the centrepiece shows at the international Central Pavilion, measuring some 3,500sq m, in the main Giardini area, and at the much larger Arsenale. When I ask Enwezor what it means to be at the centre of the world’s attention, he gives a disarming answer. “I don’t quite know what it means. By now, maybe being the director of Venice is a little pedestrian,” he allows himself a slight smile, “and I say this only because when I became the artistic director of Documenta, I was 35 years old. I was the youngest director they had ever appointed. Now I’m slightly over 50, so I just have to make a competent exhibition! There is really little that one has to prove in Venice, it just has to be a competent exhibition, so there is no overarching agenda as there was for [Documenta].” Enwezor says – and this is corroborated independently – that he has stood back from detailed conversations with nations about their individual pavilions. “I want to see the diversity of archives refected in the pavilions so I can really focus on what I want to achieve. “In Venice, I am very, very intrigued by the duration of the event itself. It lasts over six months and so I’m interested in the nature of that duration, whether one should make an exhibition where you let it run for six months and get old, or whether one can also 124 Baku.

use the time of the exhibition more actively.” Will the end result be as different to previous Biennales as his Documenta was to its predecessors? “I think so, but only in parts,” he says. “All exhibitions always look like exhibitions. The difference, though, is that I’m trying very much not to be historical in the exhibitions, my interest is really to work within the context of the present, so for many artists I’m going to be talking to, I think it will be on the basis of that. 5.

“There will be a constellation of ideas that will form the overall idea of the Biennale. After 120 years, you cannot keep reinventing it, so the sophistication of the Biennale is something that I’m very interested in, because there’s nothing else like it in the world. He continues: “I think that its anachronism is actually its strength; it has national pavilions – no other Biennale has national pavilions today, everybody has got rid of them. You have a particular context in which the exhibitions are made, often involving historical architecture, so it’s very specifc and it’s in this place, on this island, that’s almost utopian, in a sense. So I want to keep as close as possible to the trajectory of the Biennale as such, but to try to make an exhibition that refects what artists are seeing today.”

DIZ MUNCHEN GMBH/ALAMY. ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/GETTY. ANDREA MEROLA/EPA/XIANPIX/ FELIX HOERHAGER/DPA/CORBIS. HUGO GLENDINNING/© MATTHEW BARNEY/COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS. MAXIMILIAN GEUTER.

by their countries for this ‘Art Olympics’, including Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Lucio Fontana. In 2015, Sarah Lucas represents Britain, Joan Jonas is the US’s star and the Netherlands has Herman de Vries. Some countries have joint or group shows, such

A consistency in Enwezor’s thinking over the years has been its seriousness. In many ways, his socio-political approach is an antidote to the superfciality of much of the art world’s party scene. Is there space for frivolity in the Enwezor Biennale? And in art in general? “Oh yes, of course,” he replies. “The word that I would say I resist using is art as ‘entertainment’, but that does not mean that art cannot be entertaining; they are two different things. Frivolity is part of the feld of play, that it can be playful, it can be disarming, while still being very serious.” Enwezor is a big thinker and a big player, and I look around the room: this was the

cosmopolitan core, but it has a very rich, vivid and diverse population. So that is really, in many ways, one way to look at it. However, if I’m honest, I do miss the kind of vitality of bigger cities like Berlin, or London, Paris or New York. “So I fnd Munich to be a place of retreat, and I say that in all sincerity, because it’s a place where one can focus, one can work, it’s not the place that produces the kind of conversations that sometimes I really crave, conversations that are about the bigger contexts of the world. But it has a very vibrant cultural situation, which yes, sometimes can be conservative – one might say if not conservative, at least classical. The degree of comfort that the city really provides, the so-called high quality of life, is always constantly trumpeted here, it could be a little disconcerting and boring.”

in the world that’s not working for the car industry, or other small technological groups. It makes one have this sense of being historically placed in that context, and that can be challenging sometimes.” This, I think, is Enwezor’s way of saying it can be lonely being a black African living in conservative Bavaria, artworld fgure or not. For his most personal point of all, his customary lucidity has abandoned him, but that doesn’t make it any less eloquent.

I FIND MUNICH TO BE A PLACE OF RETREAT, AND I SAY THAT IN ALL SINCERITY.

6. centre of an empire that vanished just a few years after it was conceived, and is now part of a building in a German city that, while certainly signifcant, could not be considered global. I have to ask, what’s it like living in Bavaria? “Well,” he starts, slightly defensively, though as quick and fuent as ever, “I think it’s important to say I am based in Munich, and while Munich may be in Bavaria, it’s not exactly thoroughly cosmopolitan, but it is defnitely international. It is a global city, and it doesn’t necessarily have a

Ah yes: cities that score highly in a certain magazine’s ‘best cities to live in’ charts: so, it’s a bit boring, right? “Absolutely, exactly.” As ever, there is a deeper point to make. “I think it’s particular to a lot of European cities of medium size, that are for all intents and purposes monocultural, and that increases a good feeling of living historically, simply because for me, my facility with the language is not very good, so I am not as fully integrated in the conversations that have taken place here as I would like. Being African, the lens through which Africa is looked, the way it’s perceived, does not offer the kind of opportunity for a welcome engagement with what it means to be an international professional

1. Enwezor in Munich, 2012. 2. Work by Tomás Saraceno, ‘Making Worlds’ exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009. 3. ‘Contamination’ (2011) by Joana Vasconcelos, Palazzo Grassi, Venice. 4. ‘SS Hangover’ by Ragnar Kjartansson, Arsenale, 55th Venice Biennale, 2013. 5. Ai Weiwei’s ‘Bang’ (2010–13), 55th Venice Biennale, 2013. 6. Still from Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s flm ‘River of Fundament’ (2014). 7. Matthew Barney. 125 Baku.

Environmental change is a challenge that we all face. And to mark 50 years of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Baku and 50 international artists are tackling these issues head-on. Photography by GAUTIER DEBLONDE Interviews by FRANCESCA PEAK

This page: ‘The Walrus’ (2006), a drawing by George Condo and, below, part of the ‘Penguins’ (2012) installation by Laura Ford. Opposite: ‘Congress’ (2014) by Stephanie Quayle.

126 Baku.

Here Tomorrow

an ecological change be averted through art? That’s the theme behind ‘Here Today…’, the exhibition of international contemporary art that debuted in London last November. The show is vast, with eight ‘chapters’ dealing with issues such as the human footprint, unsustainable fshing and the positive effect of action; every piece on display aims to highlight the fragility of life and beauty of nature. Ahead of its arrival at the Venice Biennale, then Baku later this year, fve artists from the exhibition show us their work and explain why conservation matters to them. 127 Baku.

JODIE CAREY

JULIAN PERRY

LAURA FORD

ACKROYD & HARVEY

“We live in one world, and sustaining the environment and providing for each other is our job. We’re in one cycle with nature, and we can’t get away from that. It’s easy, in a world saturated with images, for conservation to fall down our priority list, but there’s a need for change and we must respond now.” “If you’ve got a sense of doom about the environment, which a lot of people do, you don’t think you need to do anything – all is lost anyway. It’s that attitude I want to challenge, because protecting our surroundings is about attitude more than action. Making ordinary people do something is as important as petitioning leaders.” 128 Baku.

“My paintings represent some of the biggest conservation issues in the UK today – coastal erosion, tree disease and potentially massive ecological changes. Undeniably, the most powerful tragedy is little bits of plastic fnding their way into the guts of seabirds. It’s made me really think about how we use packaging.”

“We have been pushing so many things to the brink. Since the 1970s global population has increased by 80 per cent, putting huge pressure on the animal kingdom. We need leaders, artists, scientists, everyone to work together and stop animals dropping off the planet. Change can happen, it’s all about willpower.”

1. ‘Pelicans in the Carpet Room’ (2014) by Farid Rasulov. 2. ‘Whale’ (2006), an animation by Jacco Olivier. 3. (From left) ‘Hunt 4’ (2014) by Hugo Wilson, ‘Des PlundersHerrlichkeit’ (2011) by Werner Büttner, and ‘Ditaola VII’ (2014) by Mohau Modisakeng. 4. ‘Play Dead; Real Time’ (2003) by Douglas Gordon. 2.

GRAHAM STEVENS

“What people don’t understand is that you have to clean the air and water. It needs to be a ‘blue-green’ approach. We need to clean the water, as it acts as a connection between the air and the ground. Every world city has to change how they operate, but it’s a matter of waiting for the penny to drop. We’re pumping out CO2 constantly. Anything we burn goes straight into the atmosphere. I raised £8m to do greenhouses such as my ‘Desert Cloud’ project, but nothing came of it. “The fossil fuel industry, mines, and people who are for sustainability – this is the fght we have now. If we lose, we will turn into Venus, which has an entirely carbon atmosphere and a temperature of 400°C. “It took so long for people to understand what was happening, but the basic concepts of science are all you need. The science is there – all the answers are at our fngertips. It’s crunch time: either we fx the planet in the next 10 years, or it will be near-impossible. This is the single-most important thing we, as world citizens, can do.”

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THE ARTISTS INVOLVED HERE HAVE TRANSLATED THE DATA OF SCIENTISTS INTO A SENSATION, WHICH IS MORE POWERFUL THAN A LIST OF FACTS AND NUMBERS. GRAHAM STEVENS

129 Baku.

In this issue, our illustrators present their own perspectives on the recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Weeks in London and Istanbul.

London

â&#x20AC;&#x153;London Fashion Week always brings the physical space and architecture of the city to life in new ways for me. I'm from London and it's a great town, but people can be guarded about bringing emotion and beauty out in public. The shows make you see the city in new ways.â&#x20AC;? MARGOT BOWMAN This spread and previous

134 Baku.

Istanbul

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Istanbul is one of the ancient cities of the world with a rich history and culture, but is at the same time very modern, just like my home city of Baku. For me, Fashion Week reflected this with a rich, modern and rhythmic resonance. I have tried to capture this in my illustration.â&#x20AC;? LYAMAN YUSIFLI

Special thanks to MERCEDES-BENZ for arranging access to all the events. 135 Baku.

Eye.

THE GLOBAL CULTURAL BAROMETER

CULTURAL MRI

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CARLO GIAMBARRESI. ADDITIONAL PARIS RESEARCH BY FARAH NAYERI.

Paris meets the suburbs.

MEME Small is beautiful and cheap.

ARS LONGA Love isn’t everything.

SCI-ART Magnetic attraction.

ART AGONY UNCLE See the real thing.

1 Cultural MRI

Controversy and culture collide in Paris’s 19th arrondissement, says Laura Archer.

he 19th arrondissement in the north-east of Paris has a fearsome reputation. Ask a waiter in one of the storied brasseries in Saint-Germain-desPrés, over in the salubrious 6th, what he thinks of the area and the look is one of abject horreur. “No one goes there. Robber, junkie…” Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, seems to be the message. But tell that to the man selling armfuls of parsley and mint outside Porte de Pantin Metro station. Or to the violinist practising in the Cité de la musique. Or the juggler deep in concentration as he lobs his six clubs towards the vaulted glass ceiling of Le 104. Or the woman who runs a foating theatre who recalls – beaming – the time Robert de Niro brought his 137 Baku. Eye.

children to a performance, dumbfounding the actors who emerged from behind the curtain to be faced with one of Hollywood’s leading lights. For much of the 20th century, the 19th arrondissement – 10 minutes’ walk from Gare du Nord and sliced neatly in two by the Canal de l’Ourcq – was a working-class stronghold, home to a web of abattoirs, factories and warehouses. Today it remains decidedly urban, a grid of tightly packed housing estates, its streets tourist free. But what it lacks in Haussmannera elegance, it makes up for in character. Look closely: behind the austere facade lies a cultural scene that’s gaining pace. The canal is a good place to start. The Bassin de la Villette stretches east from Stalingrad Metro, lined with barges housing bars, a comedy club, the theatre and a library. Joggers and cyclists loop across the bridges and pétanque matches are fiercely contested on the banks. In July and August the Bassin is turned into a beach, with rowing boats and pedalos on the water. Swing north towards the railway and you’ll come to Le 104 (at 104 rue d’Aubervilliers). This handsome, 19th-century compound once served as Paris’s funeral ‘factory’ – services for Victor Hugo and Jean-Paul Sartre were arranged here. It was reborn in 2008 as an arts space and is now under the

138 Baku. Eye.

direction of José-Manuel Gonçalvès, who has spearheaded the centre’s interaction with the local community. “This is a very blue-collar neighbourhood,” he explains. “A particular section of the population will move here and raise living standards but when you have 50-storey towers, as you do here, gentrification is never going to go all the way.” The airy space is a place for artists and the local community to come together in a spirit of creativity. Passers-by call in to browse art exhibitions; dancers stretch and twirl; students rummage for treasure in a vintage store; a woman leads a tai chi class in slow, graceful movements. As it turns out, the most controversial thing here is

This is also where the Philharmonie de Paris, a huge new classical concert hall, opened in January. Its architect, Jean Nouvel, dramatically refused to attend the opening of his own building, due to the ongoing controversy over delays (Nouvel maintains it’s still not ready) and soaring costs (€390m at the last count). Its very presence here, in the 19th, has also stirred up Parisian haute society, for whom the idea of trekking to the north-eastern hinterlands for a highbrow culture fix has them choking on their millefeuille. But that’s precisely why it was built here. “A phenomenal mutation is taking place here today,” explains Philharmonie director

a man wielding a sword, which on closer inspection proves to be a circus act. All roads in the 19th ultimately lead to Parc de la Villette, the third-largest park in Paris. Built in the 1980s on the site of the city’s historic slaughterhouses, it is home to an extraordinary array of cultural venues. There’s Cité de la musique, the Conservatoire de Paris and Le Zénith, Paris’s original rock concert venue, which has hosted everyone from Johnny Hallyday to Rihanna. The gleaming mirrored dome of the IMAX theatre La Géode is part of the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Europe’s largest science museum.

Laurent Bayle, who says gentrification and company relocations are redefining the capital’s traditional centre. “Our future audiences will come not just from people living in the 20 arrondissements, but from the millions living in the immediate suburbs,” he adds. Ah yes, the suburbs. Or, rather, les banlieues, the favourite subject of feverish newspaper headlines lamenting France’s social and economic demons. But cross the Périphérique – the ring-road that separates the arrondissements from les banlieues – and you’re in the suburb of Pantin. It is here that, unbeknown to many, Hermès and Chanel have ateliers. It is also where Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac opened a new 4,700sq m branch with great fanfare in 2012. Located in an elegantly remodelled former foundry, the gallery sits in the middle of an industrial estate – not where you’d expect to find blue-chip art (its sister gallery is in the chic Marais district in the third and fourth arrondissements). It has just hosted a show of Gilbert & George’s new works; Antony Gormley takes over in March with an exhibition so big, it will require a three-week shutdown

1. Nightlife at Le 104. 2. Parc de la Villette at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, with La Géode in the distance. 3. Thaddaeus Ropac’s new gallery in Pantin. 4. The banks of the Bassin de la Villette. 5. The Philharmonie de Paris concert hall, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. 6. La Géode. 7. Abandoned graffiticovered factories along the Canal de l’Ourcq. 8. ‘Les Twins’, Laurent and Larry Bourgeois. 9. Le 104 director JoséManuel Gonçalvès with a Keith Haring sculpture. 10. Thaddaeus Ropac.

to install. “I think Pantin is becoming a hot place,” asserts Ropac. He has aimed the gallery not just at collectors, who represent “a handful of people” and who will travel to see shows regardless of location. “To run a gallery on this scale you want an audience.” Like the Philharmonie, he hopes to bridge the cultural and social divide in Paris. Cultural tourism in Paris tends to be concentrated around the hallowed institutions on the Left and Right Banks of the Seine. Visitors refusing to head northeast will find themselves increasingly out of touch. The axis, in every artistic discipline, is shifting – to the left and right banks of the Canal de l’Ourcq.

PATRICK FORGET/SAGAPHOTO.COM/ALAMY. BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/ALAIN JOCARD/FRANCOIS GUILLOT/LOIC VENANCE/AFP/GETTY. OWEN FRANKEN/NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE. SYLVAIN SONNET/CORBIS. LAURENT VU/SIPA/RICHARD YOUNG/REX FEATURES. BORIS MUNGER.

NAMES TO KNOW

LAURENT BAYLE Once successor to France’s leading composer Pierre Boulez as director of IRCAM, Bayle is now the brains behind the mammoth new Philharmonie. ANNE-FLORE CABANIS A young artist who in 2004 made work out of ScotchTape for the disused Terminal 5 at JFK airport in New York City, this ex-resident of Le 104 has now been invited to create elastic- and tape-based art with nursery schoolchildren in the 19th arrondissement.

JOSE-MANUEL GONCALVES This Portuguese-born moverand-shaker has transformed Le 104 into the only Paris venue where high culture and street culture meet.

PLACES TO GO

LES TWINS Pioneers of new-style hip-hop dancing, identical twins Laurent and Larry Bourgeois rehearse at Le 104 – when they’re not dancing on stage with Beyoncé or modelling for Jean-Paul Gaultier, that is.

1. CITE DES SCIENCES ET DE L’INDUSTRIE Europe’s biggest science museum, which opened in 1986, attracts about five million visitors a year with its planetarium, submarine and IMAX theatre. cite-sciences.fr

THADDAEUS ROPAC The Austrian-born gallerist has put Pantin on the map with his exhibitions of high-quality art at his new gallery space, and is now one of the area’s most enthusiastic advocates.

2. EMMAUS A new branch of the thrift shop chain – created by the late Abbé Pierre to fund homeless shelters – is located inside Le 104, offering clothes, furnishings and knick-knacks. 104.fr

Périphérique

3. PENICHE ANTIPODE Lise Coquerel directs this floating theatre in the Bassin de la Villette. Afternoon magic shows and puppet theatre entertain the kids; come nightfall the barge rocks with everything from concerts to comedy to cabaret. There’s a great bar on deck, too, specializing in artisanal drinks. penicheantipode.fr

1 Parc de la Villette

4 3

Stalingrad Metro

Gare du Nord

Bassin de la Villette

19TH ARR.

Eglise de Pantin Metro

9. 10.

PANTIN

4. MUSEE DE LA MUSIQUE This gem of a museum, right next to the Philharmonie, takes you on a melodic journey from the 17th century to today with its unique collection of 4,000 period instruments. citedelamusique.fr 5. LE CAFE BLEU Opened by Ropac as a watering hole for visitors to his Pantin gallery, Le Café Bleu has a long cosy dining table and an affordable organic menu featuring quiche and soups. ropac.net

139 Baku. Eye.

Meme The post-war phenomenon of the microcar has become not only a market for avid collectors but also reminds us that driving can be just plain fun, says Mark C. O’Flaherty.

ncroyable! When former Ecole des Beaux-Arts student Paul Arzens frst turned his hand to designing automobiles in the 1930s, the results were spectacular: a cross between the soon-to-be à la mode Batmobile and something that might be seen roaring into frame in a Tamara de Lempicka painting – all shiny silver and exaggerated muscular silhouettes, channelling the Futurist leanings of deco. If Thierry Mugler had designed cars instead of couture, they might have looked something like Arzens’s open-top La Baleine (The Whale, 1958). Then the war happened, and instead of roaring around the City of Light as if it were Europe’s answer to Gotham City, Arzens faced the reality of a fuel shortage for civilian use under the German occupation, and promptly designed what would be one of the frst microcars: L’Œuf électrique (The Electric Egg, 1942), an alienlooking bubble of Plexiglas and gleaming aluminium that could race along swastika-festooned Boulevard Haussmann at 60

battery-powered kilometres an hour. Ever since Arzens’s heyday, industrial designers have firted with the idea of the microcar, even if relatively few – such as the Mini, the Fiat 500 and perhaps the Nissan Figaro – have achieved any kind of commercial success to match their cult status. Like Arzens’s design, microcars have often been the result of a search for alternative modes of transport for a fuel-conscious future with an ever-increasing pressure on urban space. Think of Sir Clive Sinclair’s C5 and the Segway – two extreme, conceptual, utopian-minded designs. The former was ridiculed and, 140 Baku. Eye.

fguratively speaking, crashed and burned. The latter didn’t become as ubiquitous as its designer, Dean Kamen, had envisaged, but it’s become standard issue for airport staf and tour groups. And while you can pick up a C5 on eBay for about £300, more visually ambitious microcars go for far more at auction. When The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum in Madison, Georgia sold of its collection back in 2013, two 1950s Messerschmitts went for north of $100,000, while another, the FMR Tg 500 Tiger, went for $322,000. The market for these cute-as-a-button automobiles is heating up, and the attraction is clear: a collection of classic Aston Martins will cost a king’s ransom and a lot of garage space, while collecting microcars is like amassing a number of Andy Warhol’s cookie jars – lower in

price, relatively speaking, and small, but still precious, with a fantastical back story. “The cars are rare and fll a niche,” explains Rob George of Anglia Car Auctions in the UK. “The Peel P50, which was made on the Isle of Man [from 1962 to 1965], is a real fnd, and the Nobel 200 [built in the UK from 1958 to 1961] is incredibly rare. The more niche the vehicle, the stronger the following.” At the landmark Bruce Weiner auction, a 1964 Peel sold for $120,750. Which is a lot. But then it does run at 100 miles to the gallon. And while only 26 of the original production lot of 47 remain in existence, you can pick up a perfectly lovely reproduction for less than £10,000 at Anglia Car Auctions. Consider it Noddy and Big Ears chic. When the High Museum of Art in Atlanta staged its

Métiers in Paris. “Arzens believed that when made in quantity, it could have replaced the bicycle,” says Schluening, who herself drives a Fiat 500. “The production of mini-cars was heavily encouraged after the war, especially in France. Resources and materials were scarce, and the industry was in tatters. The French government implemented a post-war fve-year plan that encouraged the development of economy cars. Even Avions

‘Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas’ show in 2014, some of the most compelling concept cars on display were diminutive in scale, including L’Œuf électrique, which curator Sarah Schleuning secured from the Musée des Arts et

Voisin entered this market in the late 1940s with the Biscooter, which was, as the name implied, the size of two motor scooters, and dramatically diferent in style from his large, pre-war luxury cars.” While the US entered the microcar game early on with the $250 Crosley (launched in 1939), American culture hungered for bigger and better. It was Europe that embraced the ‘small is beautiful’ ethos. The Hungarian government launched a highly focused microcar project in the early 1950s, which saw the arrival of the Uttörő, Isetta, Alba Regia and Balaton. Twenty years later the UK would be responsible for what is, today, one of the most recognized microcars, the Bond Bug, a single-door coupé that came, customarily, as befts its era, in pop art orange. “The Bond Bug really does it for me,” says Chris Rees, author of Three-Wheelers A–Z: The defnitive encyclopaedia of threewheeled vehicles from 1940

1. The three-wheeled Messerschmitt KR200 from 1955 was perfect for city driving, even if advertised as for the open road. 2. The Bond Bug. 3. The BMW Isetta. 4. The FMR Tg 500 Tiger. 5. A customized KR200 was driven by Jonathan Pryce in Terry Gilliam’s flm ‘Brazil’ (1985). 6. The Peel P50. 7. L’Œuf électrique, seen here with its designer Paul Arzens in the 1950s.

to date. “It was designed by a Czech immigrant, Tom Karen, who also designed the Raleigh Chopper bike. It’s an utterly unique, Space-Hopper-cool design, combining an extreme wedge form, aircraft-inspired detailing and a fold-forward canopy for getting in and out.” Rees cites “rarity and cute 1950s design” as the key components attached to the most collectable and expensive microcars. The French Inter 175, which can fold up to ft through doorways, has sold recently at auction for $161,000. Like with

all things we buy, or desire, it’s about falling in love with the way something looks. And it’s easy to fall in love with the designs – they tap, fundamentally, into childhood notions of play, adventure and science fction. “Microcars have a timeless design, which could come from almost any moment in the 20th or 21st centuries,” says Rees. “Terry Gilliam recognized this in his flm Brazil [1985], which invented Steampunk before the phrase even existed. Jonathan Pryce drove a

Messerschmitt bubble car in the movie – the very defnition of retro-futurism.” The contemporary automobile industry, like most sectors of technology, is driven by homogeneity rather than diference. Cars are, by and large, boring. The visionaries of design all acknowledge and fght against it. Tom Karen knew it. Paul Arzens knew it. Even DeLorean knew it. Cars should be vehicles for fantasy as well as practical conveyance. And no matter what else they are, microcars are fun.

141 Baku. Eye.

It’s axiomatic that you have to buy the art you love but it’s never that simple, as Dylan Jones, British GQ’s editor-in-chief, discovers to his cost.

This has meant that most of the good pieces are now just bounced around between the top fve per cent of collectors, while the rest of us have to either collect prints or special editions. And there are posters, too, in which there is now a huge market, especially ones that have a certain provenance. This is a minefeld, as on the one hand you can buy a limitededition Warhol poster from 1966, say, that is worth upwards of £5,000, while on the other you can waste a couple of grand on a French flm poster that might look good in a John Jones frame in your bathroom, but which is probably worth less at resale than the candle you light before stepping into your bath. The big growth area in the past decade has been with photography – look at how desirable the work of Peter Beard has become, for example. And you only need to ask David Bailey about the number of

what you actually love can have its downside. Many years ago, as my birthday approached, my wife found herself unable to fnd me anything. I always buy my own clothes, and she can never buy me books because she says that I have read whatever she buys me. So she tends to buy me art. As a fairly formidable person, she doesn’t ask nor does she wait to be asked – she simply gets on with it. However, where art is concerned, and particularly with the art she wants to get for me, she tends to run her decision by me frst. And so, the day before my birthday, she called me at the ofce to ask my opinion on a piece she was thinking of buying me. She frst left a message on my phone, then by email, and eventually actually turned up in person to make sure I got the message. The piece in question had been put on hold, and she had to get back to them by 3pm or else they were going to put it

hese days, many people like to think of themselves as collectors. Or, to put it another way, those who previously considered themselves educated or self-educated enough to profess an opinion on art like to think of themselves as collectors. Because these days it isn’t enough simply to have an opinion; these days you need to own, to collect, to curate, to live your professional life through the art in your home. And if you’re in the fashion

industry, then what you decide to hang on your walls is almost as important as what clothes you decide to hang on your body. So, what does the art in your home really say about you? Well, I think it’s fair to say that the art market has followed the furniture market in as much as everyone these days wants to buy art that was produced post1900. Whether it’s pre-war or post-modern, it needs to be new. Sure, there is also the inevitable issue of cost – can I aford it, and if so, how long can I aford it for? – but to invest in something made in the past 125 or so years seems to be the right thing to do in 2015. 142 Baku. Eye.

platinum prints he’s sold in the past 18 months to know that returns on investments in this area are high. Extremely high. I collect a lot of photography as it is the world I live in, so I know a lot of photographers, and publish a lot of photographers, and have very close ties with the industry. I also fnd that photography gives a room a contemporary edge, but one, of course, that is completely defned by choice. There is so much photography in the world – and so much of it good – that your idiosyncratic taste can make for an extremely idiosyncratic environment. Personally – and, as far as collecting goes, professionally, too – I think you should follow your heart. My house is littered with art, but it is all stuf I have bought because I liked it, or, in most cases, loved it. I buy from friends, from galleries, from auctions and from pretty much anywhere. Although only buying

back on the market. Well, when she told me what she had optioned, I made one of my less successful business decisions. She told me the artist’s name and I shrugged, and then shook my head. “Hmmmm, I’m not sure, you know. I quite like his work, but I don’t love it,” I said. “And I think if you’re going to live with something in your house then you should really love it. After all, art is like people…” My wife called me a fool, turned on her heels, and promptly went of to drown her sorrows at The Groucho Club. And why did I make the wrong decision? Well, my longsufering wife had tried to buy me a Banksy. So, as a fnal word of advice, might I suggest that if you are deciding whether or not to buy something on the condition that you love it, a passing fancy might actually be good enough.

1. Poster advertising the French flm ‘Ah, Quelle Equipe’ (1957). 2. Work by Banksy. 3. ‘110–120 Pounder, February 1965’ by Peter Beard. 4 & 5. Designs, made using techniques such as injection moulding, laser cutting and 3D printing, by Iris van Herpen for her ‘Magnetic Motion’ collection, shown at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2014, included (4) the ‘Halo’ dress, seen here with Van Herpen (right).

JOHN D. KISCH/SEPARATE CINEMA ARCHIVE/ REBECCA SAPP/WIREIMAGE/PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY. © PETER BEARD, COURTESY OF THE PETER BEARD STUDIO/ART + COMMERCE.

Ars Longa

Science x Art Not many fashion designs have anything in common with the Big Bang, but Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s strangely beautiful clothes do to a surprising degree, discovers Michael Brooks.

ris van Herpen is known for her avantgarde coverings for the human body. Last year the Amsterdam-based designer presented her collection called ‘Biopiracy’, which included a 3D-printed kinetic dress and models who were gracefully, if rather eerily, foating vacuum-packed between plastic sheets in poses that evoked suspended animation. Yet Van Herpen’s latest ready-to-wear collection is perhaps her most scientifc and beautiful yet. There is a strange tension between science and beauty. A technically accurate description of Van Herpen’s ‘Halo’ dress, for instance, is that it is composed of thermally formed acrylic elements, stretched into hyperbolic cone forms and linked together with silicone darts. Hardly poetic, but the result is poetic in the extreme – an intricate, breathtaking piece that realizes the shapes and patterns formed by magnetic felds. Magnetism is a primordial force. After the Big Bang, it sculpted the details of the universe, giving shape to the frst galaxies. Now it has given form to fashion. Van Herpen’s spring/summer 2015 collection is a unique and startling assembly of magnetically inspired clothing. Entitled ‘Magnetic Motion’, the collection explores the patterns created when materials interact with magnetic felds. It is the product of collaborations with Canadian architect Philip Beesley and Dutch artist Jolan van der Wiel, both of whom, as with Van Herpen, are interested in blurring the boundary between technology and nature. Van Herpen had the idea after a visit to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern, near Geneva. There, some of the world’s most powerful magnets are used to steer beams of subatomic particles around the vast 27km circular path of the collider. What impressed Van Herpen wasn’t the particle collisions themselves, but their magnetic guiding hands that ushered a powerful new creative urge into her consciousness. The collection, which premiered in Paris last year, shows the place that science has assumed at the centre of our cultural eforts. While it suggests a new sphere of science’s infuence, it also ofers the opportunity for science to be infuenced by beauty; the collection deserves attention from scientists as much as from fashion journalists. These

pieces should be hung in the laboratory, because to stare at them is to gaze into the abyss of what we don’t yet understand. Magnetism is inextricably linked with electrical force – so much so that the proper term is electromagnetism. This is considered one of the four fundamental forces of nature, along with gravity and two forces that bind atomic nuclei. It is a remarkable achievement to be able to describe everything in nature as the consequence of just four forces. The aim of the LHC, though, is to go further, reducing the four forces to one. At the beginning of the universe, the narrative goes, there was just one force. If we could recreate those conditions, we would witness the ‘grand unifcation’ of magnetism and its sister forces, and perhaps fnally understand how everything came into being. In that light, the pieces that Van Herpen has created ofer a new iconography – scientifc rather than sacred. They are both a hymn and a provocation to scientifc research. Van Herpen is feeding back to her sources, providing a visualization of their work that might spur new angles of research. The physicist Freeman Dyson once observed that science is pushed forward by new technology as often as it is by new ideas. Perhaps it can also be pushed forward by fashion.

143 Baku. Eye.

Art Agony Uncle Confused about art? Kenny Schachter is pleased to help out.

Do you have any advice for buying art online, or should I steer clear? James, London. Nothing can replace the experience of standing before a painting. Looking on a laptop, or worse a ‘smart’ device, is a diferent kind of seeing, something far removed from the thing itself. However, I am always up to contradict myself. Instagram has become the default platform for discovering (but not buying) art, though that was not the intent of the app – it just seemed to happen that way despite the many attempts by art-specifc companies to launch sites geared to buying art. Yes, you can discover artists from far and wide, and yes, you can successfully collect utilizing such methods. But wouldn’t you rather do without any unpleasant surprises by seeing the stuf in the fesh beforehand? The web suits more seasoned lookers better. So when it comes to buying art, Instagram at your own risk. 144 Baku. Eye.

Which art fairs should I attend? Annette, Zurich. There are so many! Basel, Basel and more Basel. At this stage I can’t even keep track of all the fairs that have spawned from this fair mothership. The Swiss and Miami versions come before Hong Kong for me, as I am not so active in that region, but there is something to be gained from them all. Though I am no fan of the elitist mentality that is purposefully cultivated by the founders of Frieze, that is surely one not to miss – or two, rather, as there is a sister fair in New York, and I admit begrudgingly

that they are both must-sees. The Armory in New York is hit or miss, but SP-Arte in São Paulo will always have great art on view. And if you are intrepid enough, visit the ancillary fairs that inevitably attach themselves to the main events like suckerfsh. Are Old Masters due a revival? Mia, Hong Kong. I wouldn’t know a Holbein from a Holiday Inn painting. All of the very best art from any era will always appreciate and be appreciated, but you can only know what you know or what you want to learn. Each

With 3D printers becoming cheaper and smaller, expect an onslaught of hometaught, self-proclaimed design experts.

sector of the art market is like a separate culture with its own history that must be learned anew, and then some. Issues of conservation and authenticity will always serve as a hindrance for the uninitiated, not to mention the high degree of scholarship necessitated to really get a grip of the period. Whether it revives or not – and to what extent – is for me irrelevant, as I will never have the acumen or desire to tread in those (for the non-specialist) especially treacherous waters.

Email your art dilemmas to dearkenny@condenast.co.uk

Selfe sticks in galleries = ofcially banned in New York. Do put them away!

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The Rice Cluster pavilion at the Milan Expo, which will celebrate the history and future of the grain.

PLEASURE DOMES

Milanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Expo, starting this spring, brings together an unprecedented array of star architects designing its spectacular temporary pavilions. We have an exclusive preview. Words by CLAIRE WRATHALL Photography by MATTEO CIRENEI

146 Baku.

t is my anxious desire to promote among nations the cultivation of all those arts which are fostered by peace and which, in their turn, contribute to maintain the peace of the world.” These are the heartfelt words of Britain’s Queen Victoria to Parliament just months after the opening of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations (to give it its full and unwieldy title). The year, of course, was 1851, and the exhibition’s site was in London’s Hyde Park. It was the frst truly pan-national trade fair the world had ever seen. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Haiti, Persia, Russia and Turkey were among the 50 nations that participated, not to mention a further 39 British colonies and protectorates, including Canada and New Zealand. And more than six million visitors queued to see what they had brought, objects as various as the Koh-iNoor diamond (from India), a tableau of taxidermied kittens taking tea (sent by the German Customs Union), a display of gold watches (from Switzerland), a Colt repeating revolver (from the US) and an eau-de-cologne fountain (from Austria), all of which were displayed within a vast building dubbed the Crystal Palace, an immense glasshouse, 563m long and almost 140m wide, that had been specially constructed. The building was a wonder of the modern world and it set a precedent that endures to this day. Nowadays, what used to be called world’s fairs are now referred to as World Expos, and since 1931 they have been overseen and regulated by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). In the past decade or so the pattern of holding a World Expo every fve years has been established, 147 Baku.

1. 2.

148 Baku.

and this year it is Milan’s turn to host this exposition. Just as the Crystal Palace became the model for spectacular architecture at a world’s fair, so today’s World Expos demand pavilions by leading architects. Each country vies with the other participants to produce a more arresting, more beautiful and impressive structure. The Milan Expo is no exception, as among the famous names contributing there are none other than Foster + Partners and Daniel Libeskind. Even the names co-opted to develop the concept and master plan of the 1.1 million sq m Expo Milano 2015, are stellar, including Jacques Herzog, Joan Busquets and Stefano Boeri. They will all be striving to match the theme of this expo: ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’. In addition to national pavilions, which represent close on three-quarters of the world’s nation states, bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union and Cern will be exhibiting. Alongside them will be 13 non-governmental organizations and charities, including Oxfam and Save the Children, and fve corporations. In the words of the Economist, the result is something “between a trade convention and a theme park”. The relationship between architecture and the World Expos is an interesting one. As the Russian architect Sergei Kuznetsov of the Moscow practice SPEECH, which has designed the Russian pavilion, notes: “The history of Soviet and Russian architecture is closely linked to the country’s participation at these great events”. Stalin, for instance, sent two sections of architect Alexey Dushkin’s palatial

1. One of the three different biosphere domes in the Azerbaijan pavilion under construction. 2. The roof of the Angolan pavilion. 3. The Cocoa and Chocolate Cluster. 4 & 6. The Rice Cluster seen from the main boulevard, the Decumanus. 5. The Cocoa and Chocolate Cluster.

THE AIM WAS NOT SIMPLY TO CREATE AN ICONIC BUILDING BUT TO BUILD A SPACE THAT IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE STORY AND OF THE THEME ITSELF.

Mayakovskaya metro station to the 1939 world’s fair in New York, where clever deployment of mirrors enabled it to look as though the entire concourse had been reconstructed on Flushing Meadows. No wonder it won the Grand Prize that year. Whether there will be life for this year’s Russian pavilion after the Milan Expo fnishes in October remains to be seen. It’s an understated rectilinear wood-and-glass box with a great sweeping cantilever extending from its roof terrace, which will be richly planted in keeping with this year’s offcial feed-theworld theme. In fact, most pavilions are designed to be dismantled and reused. Azerbaijan’s pavilion, for example, will be sent to Baku to become a permanent visitor attraction. Foster + Partners’ spectacular project for the United Arab Emirates has also been promised an afterlife in Abu Dhabi, where it will be rebuilt as a tourist attraction. And no wonder, as it is an arresting structure. At its heart is a tall, rotating, circular building containing an auditorium, near which is a 75m-long video installation or digital falaj inspired by an

ancient Arabian water channel. The drum structure is enclosed by fve parallel serpentine streets, their high, sand-coated, curvilinear walls patterned with rippling lines to suggest ancient striations caused by the elements, and recalling too the narrow streets and courtyards in Masdar, the futuristic clean-energy city Foster + Partners has designed in Abu Dhabi. As Gerard Evenden, the project’s leading architect, said at the UAE pavilion’s launch, “the aim was not simply to create an iconic building but to build a space that is an integral part of the story and of the theme itself. Everything that we have done is connected to the UAE and its efforts to achieve sustainable solutions. We draw on natural landscape and vernacular architecture as well as modern designs that are themselves infuenced by traditional forms. A roof-top garden will help to supply the restaurant, while a variety of green energy technologies will be employed.” Daniel Libeskind, one of the other starry names whose work can be seen at this year’s Expo, has designed the Vanke pavilion. If you can’t quite put Vanke on the map, that’s because it’s a Chinese realestate company rather than a sovereign state, even if its turnover is bigger than many of the world’s national economies. (In 2013 it generated revenue of more than $20 billion.) In an effort to expose a million visitors to its brand, Vanke is investing €3 million in its exhibition and the 1,000sq m structure that will contain it. It will take the form of a shitang or traditional dining 149 Baku.

JUST AS THE CRYSTAL PALACE WAS THE MODEL FOR SPECTACULAR ARCHITECTURE AT A WORLD’S FAIR, SO TODAY’S WORLD EXPOS DEMAND PAVILIONS BY LEADING ARCHITECTS. hall, incorporating work by Han Jiaying, one of China’s most infuential graphic designers. Inspired by the conventions used to depict rocks and rice felds found in traditional Chinese landscape painting, the leader of the pavilion’s interior exhibition design, Ralph Appelbaum, has sought to “tell the story of civilization, technology and the 21st century, as well as offer a space for refection and a celebration of different cultures”. He has done so by means of a structure shaped like a coiled snake covered with metallic-ceramic tiles in a scale-like red (an auspicious colour in Chinese culture). Inside there will be a “constellation of more than 300 screens mounted on a matrix of bamboo armatures”, on which short flms themed on food and nourishment in China will play. The Chinese national pavilion, meanwhile, has been designed in collaboration with a team from Tsinghua University by the New Yorkbased practice Studio LinkArc. Their building, which will contain interactive installations and cultural artefacts from 40 Chinese provinces, comprises both a structure evocative of classic Chinese architecture with a pagoda-inspired roof, and what is in essence a feld of wheat through which has been threaded an interactive light installation of LEDs on slender electronic stems. Above all this foats an undulating bamboo 150 Baku.

structure clad in shingles designed to mimic traditional Chinese terracotta roof tiles. Bamboo – a fast-growing, sustainable crop that provides both food and a construction material – is also used to make the cluster of top-heavy towers that makes up the Vietnamese pavilion, designed by Vo Trong Nghia to evoke lotus fowers. There’ll be more lush greenery in Azerbaijan’s pavilion. Here, undulating horizontal timber louvres (which admit light and air) will contain three technologically sophisticated, environmentally sensitive, foliage-flled biospheres, conceived by three Italian practices, Simmetrico Network,

1. The pavilions of Iran (left) and Chile (right). 2. The Coca-Cola pavilion. 3. The Malaysia pavilion. 4. The Slovenia pavilion. 5. The Rice Cluster on the Decumanus. 6. The Coca-Cola pavilion (left) and the Vanke pavilion (right).

Arassociati Architecture and the landscape architects AG&P. The pavilion is meant to be “a metaphor for a country where different elements coexist in perfect equilibrium, giving rise to growth and development”. The glazed globes containing the biospheres are enclosed within a three-storey structure, the central foor of which will be designed to refect the nine climatic areas of Azerbaijan and the biodiversity found within them. Below it, there will be an exhibition on the nation’s geographical location, while the roof will accommodate a shaded terrace and restaurant. Yet more verdure will spill through the walls of the French pavilion, the Paris partnership X-TU’s contemporary reinterpretation of a traditional European covered market, specifcally the one at Les Halles in Paris. In place of a wrought-iron superstructure, however, there’s a wooden exoskeleton. Through its ribs will grow vegetables, herbs and hops, representing an elevated and aromatic agricultural landscape. The UK pavilion will also be appealing to senses beyond the visual. Called The Hive, it will hum to the buzz of real bees, just one element of “an abstract reinterpretation of the architecture of bees” by the British artist Wolfgang Buttress. At its heart is a golden sphere comprising tiny hexagons – “one of the key attributes of the honeycomb” – set within an ethereal wire frame and surrounded by a wildfower meadow and fruit trees. There is no doubt that expos attract visitors. By the end of January – three months ahead of its opening – eight million tickets for the Milan Expo had already been sold. More than 73 million people visited the Shanghai Expo during its six-month run in 2010, comfortably beating the record set by Osaka when it hosted the event in 1970. Not that numbers are the only legacy that counts. There is also the question of the landmark they can leave behind. Take the Exposition Universelle held in Paris in 1889 to mark the centenary of the storming of the Bastille. The organizers commissioned the engineer Gustav Eiffel to design a grand arched entrance to the fair. His response was to top it with a soaring 300m-high tower. The rest, as they say, is history.

Expo Milano 2015 runs from 1 May to 31 October. expo2015.org

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1. recently visited Sydney to attend the IUCN World Parks Congress, a global conservation event held every 10 years. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s congress also marked the 50th anniversary of the IUCN Red List, which tracks the status of biological species and highlights those that are endangered â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an issue close to my heart. I took some time before the conference to travel around the national parks â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from tropical Darwin at the northern tip of the continent to Tasmania, the temperate island state south of Victoria. My journey began at Kakadu National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site and home to a vast number of species that you can only see there. I have once again become convinced that when you spend time surrounded by nature, you start to truly appreciate it for what it is and how fragile it can be, and how important organizations such as the IUCN are today.

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Main image: the distinctively coloured, hallowed rock of Uluru in the Northern Territory, in the centre of Australia. 1. Numbers of thorny devils, native to arid regions, are dwindling because of humans destroying their habitat. 2. A sign on the Arnhem Highway at the entrance to Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory. 3. Leyla Aliyeva with a termite mound in Kakadu. 4. Koalas are variously listed as rare or endangered, mainly due to habitat destruction, dog attacks, bush fires and road traffic.

Dream Time Several of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most distinctive ecosystems are under threat. Leyla Aliyeva joins leading conservationists as they discuss rescue plans, and discovers what needs to be done. Photography by THEO ALLOFS

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1. 2.

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New York

Randall’s Island Park May 14–17, 2015 Preview Day Wednesday, May 13 friezenewyork.com

Participating Galleries

303 Gallery, New York Miguel Abreu, New York Acquavella, New York Altman Siegel, San Francisco The Approach, London Art : Concept, Paris Alfonso Artiaco, Naples Elba Benítez, Madrid Peter Blum, New York Blum & Poe, Los Angeles Boers-Li, Beijing Marianne Boesky, New York Tanya Bonakdar, New York Bortolami, New York The Box, Los Angeles The Breeder, Athens Broadway 1602, New York Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York Buchholz, Cologne Shane Campbell, Chicago Canada, New York Gisela Capitain, Cologne Casa Triângulo, São Paulo Casas Riegner, Bogotá Cheim & Read, New York James Cohan, New York Sadie Coles HQ, London Continua, San Gimignano Pilar Corrias, London Raffaella Cortese, Milan CRG, New York Chantal Crousel, Paris Massimo De Carlo, Milan Elizabeth Dee, New York dépendance, Brussels Eigen + Art, Berlin frank elbaz, Paris Derek Eller, New York FGF, Warsaw Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo Marc Foxx, Los Angeles Fredericks & Freiser, New York Carl Freedman, London Stephen Friedman, London Frith Street, London Gagosian, New York gb agency, Paris A Gentil Carioca, Rio De Janeiro Gladstone, New York Goodman, Johannesburg Marian Goodman, New York Alexander Gray Associates, New York Greene Naftali, New York greengrassi, London Grimm, Amsterdam Karin Guenther, Hamburg Hauser & Wirth, New York Herald St, London Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Media Partner

Hyundai, Seoul Ibid., London In Situ - Fabienne Leclerc, Paris Taka Ishii, Tokyo Alison Jacques, London Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels Casey Kaplan, New York Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm Karma, New York Karma International, Zurich Paul Kasmin, New York Sean Kelly, New York Kerlin, Dublin Anton Kern, New York Tina Kim, New York Johann König, Berlin David Kordansky, Los Angeles Tomio Koyama, Tokyo Andrew Kreps, New York Kukje, Seoul Lehmann Maupin, New York Lelong, New York Lisson, London Long March Space, Beijing Kate MacGarry, London Matthew Marks, New York Fergus McCaffrey, New York McKee, New York Greta Meert, Brussels Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo Kamel Mennour, Paris Victoria Miro, London Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London The Modern Institute, Glasgow MOT International, London Taro Nasu, Tokyo Franco Noero, Turin David Nolan, New York Lorcan O’Neill, Rome Overduin & Co., Los Angeles P.P.O.W, New York Pace, New York Maureen Paley, London Peres Projects, Berlin Perrotin, New York Gregor Podnar, Berlin Simon Preston, New York Project 88, Mumbai Rampa, Istanbul Almine Rech, Paris Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg Andrea Rosen, New York Salon 94, New York Esther Schipper, Berlin Sfeir-Semler, Beirut Jack Shainman, New York Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York Skarstedt, New York Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Sprüth Magers, Berlin Standard (Oslo), Oslo Stevenson, Cape Town

T293, Rome The Third Line, Dubai Vermelho, São Paulo Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen Wallspace, New York White Columns, New York White Cube, London Wilkinson, London Jocelyn Wolff, Paris Zeno X, Antwerp David Zwirner, New York

Focus Algus Greenspon, New York Jessica Bradley, Toronto Bureau, New York Carlos/Ishikawa, London Chi-Wen, Taipei Clearing, New York Clifton Benevento, New York Lisa Cooley, New York Croy Nielsen, Berlin Foxy Production, New York Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Zurich Frutta, Rome James Fuentes, New York François Ghebaly, Los Angeles Laurel Gitlen, New York Hunt Kastner, Prague Instituto De Visión, Bogotá Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin Le Guern, Warsaw Limoncello, London mor charpentier, Paris Night, Los Angeles PSM, Berlin Ratio 3, San Francisco Real Fine Arts, New York Silberkuppe, Berlin Société, Berlin Simone Subal, New York Take Ninagawa, Tokyo Travesia Cuatro, Madrid

Frame 80m2 Livia Benavides, Lima Sergio Zevallos Antenna Space, Shanghai Liu Ding Johan Berggren, Malmö Eric Sidner Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club, Miami Beach Georgie Nettell Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles Mathis Altmann Dan Gunn, Berlin Alexandra Navratil JTT, New York Anna-Sophie Berger

Kendall Koppe, Glasgow Charlotte Prodger Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo Martha Araújo Mathew, Berlin Than Hussein Clark Barbara Seiler, Zurich Cécile B. Evans Tif Sigfrids, Los Angeles Zachary Leener Jessica Silverman, San Francisco Dashiell Manley Gregor Staiger, Zurich Lucy Stein Sultana, Paris Walter Pfeiffer Supplement, London Philomene Pirecki Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn Kris Lemsalu Tempo Rubato, Tel Aviv Lital Lev Cohen Kate Werble, New York Ken Tisa Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai Aaajiao

Spotlight Aicon, New York Rasheed Araeen Paule Anglim, San Francisco Lynn Hershman Leeson Hervé Bize, Nancy André Cadere David Castillo, Miami Beach Rafael Ferrer espaivisor, Valencia Hamish Fulton Henrique Faria, New York Anna Bella Geiger Garth Greenan, New York Howardena Pindell Hales, London Carolee Schneemann Ivan, Bucharest Geta Bratescu lokal_30, Warsaw Natalia LL Franklin Parrasch, New York Joan Snyder Nara Roesler, São Paulo Antonio Dias Richard Saltoun, London Shelagh Wakely Vigo, London Ibrahim El-Salahi Waldburger Wouters, Brussels Lynn Hershman Leeson Zürcher, New York Regina Bogat

Main sponsor Deutsche Bank

MY ART : Portrait

of a Lady

Francesca Bortolotto Possati, CEO of the Bauer hotel group in Venice, loves Flemish art for its rich depictions of homes and lifestyle. Portrait by GIACOMO COSUA

INTERVIEW BY FRANCESCA PEAK. ART MEDIA/HIP/TOPFOTO. COURTESY ROGER DE MONTEBELLO.

How did you develop an interest in art? My grandfather and father always loved art and supported emerging artists. I grew up exposed to a huge range of art in both their collections – from the Old Masters to early 20th-century paintings. This infuenced my eclectic taste. What compels you to buy an artwork? When I go into an auction house or gallery, a work has to speak to me and stir up emotions. Of course this depends on how I’m feeling in the moment, which is why I have such a huge variety of work. I believe contemporary art needs a story behind it: anyone can say they like a work, but it’s the story that connects you to the artist, to the work. No one liked the frst artwork I bought, apart from me – I didn’t care! I’m very open-minded; I like to see and experience a lot of things. Is the process of selecting artwork for the Bauer hotels different from choosing for your home? There is very little difference – the value of our hotels is rooted in our amazing art collection, so I apply my taste and knowledge in the same way to make them interesting places to stay. You can’t put too much personality into rooms, however, as other people will be staying in them, but I like to inject character and excite our guests. Do you have a favourite style of art? I’m passionate about Flemish paintings, because they often depict families – their homes, lifestyles and habits – and give you an idea of how they lived. My link to art is through design and lifestyle, which is why I’m so drawn to Flemish art.

Name some of your recent buys. Roger de Montebello is a contemporary landscape artist, who starts with one horizontal line and goes up and down to paint the skyline on the water. Venice is a city of transparency, light and horizontal views, and he demonstrates that beautifully. I also bought a still life by the Dutch painter Pieter Claesz – the detail is incredible and I fnd it entrancing.

What would be your dream acquisition? My father introduced me to the work of JMW Turner when I was a child. I have two small Turner drawings of the Bauer facade but would love any large piece of work he painted.

Above: Francesca Bortolotto Possati at home in Venice. From far left: ‘Venice Dogana’ (2014) by Roger de Montebello; and ‘The Sun of Venice Going to Sea’ (1843) by JMW Turner.

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THE BUZZ: Power Trip Science and electricity are not themes usually linked to hot new night spots, but these three openings in Baku this spring will convince you otherwise. Enerji

What was once the site of a huge old power station in Baku’s industrial port is now home to Enerji, a pumping new nightclub. The vast venue, and its neighbour Elektra (see below), marks the beginning of a regeneration project in this formerly run-down area. Spread over two foors, with terraces overlooking the Caspian Sea, Enerji is split into a red-lit lounge bar on the ground foor, themed on electricity, and on the mezzanine level you’ll fnd glamorous diners, possibly making the most of the private dining-room with its 24sq m graffti wall. That’s another thing, it’s also an art gallery, with kooky installations such as two life-sized horses made of salvaged metal.

Elektra

Right next-door to Enerji, Elektra is an even larger space primarily for live performances – anything from gigs to fashion shows to the city’s annual much-loved International Jazz Festival, which may relocate here this year. For post-show aperitifs there are several spacious lounge bars in which to discuss the evening’s talent, and if you’re lucky enough to be on the VIP mezzanine in the main arena there’s direct access through to the Black Diamond supper club at Enerji – to avoid the riff-raff, darling. There are some artist studios tucked away here, too, though how they work with all the noise we don’t know!

WORDS BY ABBIE VORA. EMIL KHALILOV.

Pivnaya Apteka

You don’t need to don a white lab coat to taste test the huge array of liquids on offer at this justopened bar and restaurant in Port Baku. Meaning ‘Beer Pharmacy’ in Russian, Pivnaya Apteka pays homage to the apothecary with shelves and neon lighting inspired by chemical compounds, sterile white furniture and clever mixologists behind the counter – er, bar – who administer mind-blowing cocktails. As the name also suggests there’s a long beer menu, plus dozens of kinds of vodka including special inhouse infusions. The individually stylized dining rooms offer American-grill fare and there’s a chic little coffee bar, too.

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WILD VIEWPOINT: Charles

Clover

The conservationist, author and journalist tells us why, in the run-up to the British general election, now is the time to push ahead with protecting our oceans.

e are now midway through the decade at the start of which 194 countries agreed to create a new chain of nature parks in the sea, the equivalent of the Serengeti or Yellowstone on land. We are not doing well: under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, 10 per cent of the world’s oceans are supposed to be protected by 2020 to preserve fsh and other marine wildlife, but so far only three per cent have been. That is why the Great British Oceans campaign, of which Blue Marine Foundation is a member, has been set up to focus on the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) in the run-up to Britain’s general election in May. Memorably described by the conservationist Sara Oldfeld as “fragments of paradise”, the UKOTs are relics of Empire and their waters represent one of

Earth’s most varied portfolios of marine biodiversity, ranging from the shores of Antarctica to the Mediterranean. The 14 UKOTs are the Pitcairn Islands; the Cayman Islands; Bermuda; Turks and Caicos; Anguilla; Montserrat; the British Virgin Islands; Gibraltar; the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus; St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; the Falkland Islands; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; the British Antarctic Territory; and the British Indian Ocean Territory. They are specks on the map, but they control huge areas of ocean. They make Britain’s marine estate the ffth largest in the world, and contain 94 per cent of Britain’s biodiversity. In April 2010 Britain’s government decided to make the coral reefs and tuna-flled waters of the British Indian

Ocean Territory, or the Chagos Archipelago, the world’s largest fully protected marine reserve. Since then, a race has been on to persuade the present British Government to create reserves around the Pitcairn Islands and their Pacifc coral reefs, around the South Atlantic’s Ascension Island, with its turtles and giant marlin, and around the South Sandwich Islands, home to albatrosses and whales. Some obstacles came up: the cost of enforcement; local opposition on Ascension Island; and disputed territory issues in South Georgia. It looks as if the obstacles are about to be overcome for the Pitcairn Islands. Could the tide be about to turn?

The waters around Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic Ocean, 2013, captured by Paul Colley. His photographs of the island have been used to support fundraising for Protecting Paradise, a project driven by Blue Marine Foundation to survey Ascension Island’s unique biodiversity for what could be the biggest marine reserve in the Atlantic.

Charles Clover is the chairman of Blue Marine Foundation, a charity that protects the oceans. 163 Baku.

THE ARTIST : Dream Weaver

hat I create often depends on my mood, or even what I dreamed about the night before. My art is complex – it spans sculpture, graphic art, painting and installation. As far as my style is concerned, I think it’s simply eclecticism. In it, I see social realism, surrealism and art deco, but I don’t like to defne it – I think that’s up to art critics, not me. I was born in Baku in the 1960s into a family full of art: my father, my three uncles, my brother and some of my cousins are all established artists and art experts. Growing up in this supportive hub of creativity allowed me to develop a deep affnity and appreciation for 164 Baku.

art, and by the time I was 13 I was taking lessons. Later, I studied sculpture at the State University of Art and the State Academy of Art in Baku. I am lucky to have always been immersed in the art world. Each morning, upon entering my studio in central Baku, which I share with my father and brother, my work happens spontaneously because it is already in my head. Generally I use bronze, marble and, of course, canvas, paper, plastic, wood and rubber. I prefer bronze and stone, however, because I believe there is only enough paper to last us for another hundred years. Sometimes, after fnishing work, I leave my studio and can’t quite fathom that it was actually me who created all that. I’m inspired by anything and everything – whatever is around me. It’s wonderful just to be alive!

Art is a family affair for Mahmud Rustamov, who produces startling works from the deepest recesses of his imagination. Photography by NATAVAN VAHABOVA

Paintings by Mahmud Rustamov (above, from left), ‘The Observer’ (2001), ‘The Aggressive Beauties’ (1999), and ‘Eyes’ (2011). Left: ‘Double Sided Torso’ (2011). Right: the artist in his studio in Baku, with ‘The Last Sculpture of the 20th Century’ (1998).

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HISTORY LESSON : Bard of Baku ‘Ashig Peri’ by Tamilla Dagestanli. Below: a modern saz, constructed from strips of wood.

hat is a saz? A traditional musical instrument, also known as a bağlama, that resembles a pregnant and long-necked European lute or Arabic oud. So it’s been around for ages? Indeed, it’s been present in Turkic culture for centuries and mention of the saz in medieval poetry is common. It’s always been closely tied

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song, visiting towns with only a saz in his hand and poetry in his heart. Sounds romantic. True, but even the saz is moving with the times. Once the preserve of men, the instrument is being picked up by more and more women to claim the illustrious title of ashug bard. Among them is Nargile Mehtiyeva – known as Asiq Nargile – from the ethnic Azerbaijani region of Borçalı, southern Georgia, who began playing when she was a teenager. After studying in Baku under master ashugs, she perfected the reciting and improvising of dastans (epic folk poetry). Passing her skills on to the next generation of bards, she is keeping the tradition alive. It’s a fine-looking instrument. Traditionally, the body of the saz was carved from a single block of mulberry wood, and the long neck was made from walnut. Nowadays, sazes are mostly constructed with strips of wood. And where once there were 12 strings, now there are eight, which apparently is down to the use of microphones; no longer required to carry its songs along on the wind, the saz no longer needs the louder strings. But that doesn’t mean less skill is required to play the saz. What does sound it like? I thought you’d ask that. You’ll just have to go and hear Asiq Nargile play – she performs regularly in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and has visited the UK as well. Or check her out on YouTube. And eagle-eyed viewers would have noticed that the saz made an appearance at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku – a far cry from the nomadic bards of old.

to the Azerbaijani mugham, the musical form that brings together improvisation on the saz and poetry. As the mughams became more elaborate, so the demands on the saz player grew, as did the size and number of strings of the saz itself. But the classic image of the saz is one of the ashug, or bard, roaming the Caucasus telling old stories in

STATE MUSEUM OF MUSICAL CULTURE OF AZERBAIJAN. LEBRECHT/ALAMY.

From ancient Azerbaijani musical tradition to the Eurovision Song Contest, the saz is moving with the times, says Zara Miller.

THE ILLUSTRATOR :

Australia

By Leyla Aliyeva

THE CIRCUIT

Faig Ahmed & Jean-David Malat.

Marc A. Saba, Farah Piriyeva, v Mathieu va, Flamini & Rubina Asadova. v va.

Nuran Aliyev, Teymur Radjabov, Elnara Nasirli & Mariana Haseldine.

Double Act Azerbaijani artists come to London.

DANIEL BARNETT.

Rosie Fortescue & Hum Fleming.

The exhibition ‘Exploring Inward’ at the Louise Blouin Foundation showcased the latest work of artists Aida Mahmudova and Faig Ahmed. The former’s spectacular 17m painting occupied one end of the huge gallery while the rest of the space was taken up with Ahmed’s subtle reworkings of traditional carpets. The event was part of the second BUTA Festival of Azerbaijani culture across the UK capital.

Rubina Asadova & Arzu Aliyeva.

Aida Mahmudova & her daughter Soraya.

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THE CIRCUIT

Walk on the Wild Side

Art and animal lovers gather at ‘Here Today…’ To mark 50 years of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the exhibition ‘Here Today…’ brought contemporary art and the natural world together to celebrate and to warn. The labyrinthine show at The Sorting Offce in central London featured work by 50 artists, such as Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin and Leyla Aliyeva, alongside IUCN facts and statistics. Sculptures, videos and sound pieces further highlighted the plight of endangered species and the work needed to stem the tide of extinctions. At one point an eagle swooped across the room above guests’ heads, reminding all that animals were the real stars of the show.

Alexander Dobrovinsky & Julia Baranovskaya.

Kate Bryan, Annie Morris, Thomas Marks & Idris Khan.

Polad Bulbuloglu & his daughter.

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Leyla Aliyeva.

Gillian Holmes, Ricardo Tejada & Giuditta Andreaus.

EMIL KHALILOV.

Valeria & Joseph Prigozhin.

Tina Hobley & Oliver Wheeler.

Rick Yune.

Pam Hogg.

The First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, Julia Marton-LefĂ¨vre & Arzu Aliyeva.

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The iconic Zaha Hadid-designed Heydar Aliyev Centre is incredible, and Yarat has a very impressive new space. Baku has real potential to become a signifcant world centre for the arts and culture with a whole economy supporting the creative industries. It would beneft the entire region. Whenever I visit the city, I walk along the Boulevard on the Caspian Sea, past all the tea houses and manicured gardens – that’s what makes Baku magical to me.

Nina Mahdavi is the founder of Caspian Arts Foundation, based in London.

INTERVIEW BY FRANCESCA PEAK. PORTRAIT BY EVA VERMANDEL.

Tabula Rasa NINA MAHDAVI very time I visit Baku, it feels like the frst time. It’s gone through quite a signifcant transformation, in all aspects: whenever I return there’s a new gallery to visit, a new restaurant to try. Part of my work is to support new art and culture initiatives from cities in the Caspian region, and I have seen the art scene in Baku grow and diversify. What I love about Azerbaijani artists is that they have a distinctly bold and modern approach, but they maintain a close attachment to history and their rich cultural identity – this is seen particularly in the work of artists Aida Mahmudova and Farid Abdullayev. I’ve been exceptionally inspired learning about a region that is becoming ever more visible on the radar.