The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), located next to Praça de Espanha in Lisbon, has announced that the exhibition entitled ‘Art and Fashion in the Gulbenkian Collection’ will open on April 18, presenting iconic and enigmatic works by Portuguese and international figures. Running until June 22 in the Main Gallery and closed only on Tuesdays, the exhibition “invites us to enter a space where art breathes fashion and fashion awakens art,” said the eponymous foundation, named after the Ottoman Armenian petroleum engineer and businessman who was born in Istanbul, Turkey, became a naturalised British citizen, and later settled in the Portuguese capital.
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Curated by Eloy Martínez de la Peña, the exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue illustrated with photographs by Jon Cazenave, shot exclusively for this project, which forms part of the FCG’s 70th anniversary celebrations.
“What links Vivienne Westwood to the French 18th century? Guo Pei to an Ancient Egyptian funerary mask? Balenciaga to an Assyrian bas-relief? Or Alexander McQueen and the House of Givenchy to Japanese prints?” read the foundation’s website.
“In a sensory experience, works from the Gulbenkian Collection are set in dialogue with leading figures in haute couture and contemporary design, revealing forms, symbols and gestures that transcend time,” it explained.
“Starting from Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s (1869–1955) deep interest in art and fashion, the exhibition begins by showing how the Gulbenkian couple followed the trends of their time,” it continued.
“The richness and diversity of the Gulbenkian Collection — with works of art from Ancient Egypt to the 20th century — allow us to explore how recurring motifs in the history of art are taken up and reinterpreted by contemporary fashion, in national and international contexts.”
This is a journey through around 100 works from the Gulbenkian Museum, shown side by side with 140 garments by names such as Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Vivienne Westwood and Yves Saint Laurent, to name a few, not forgetting Portuguese designers such as Alves/Gonçalves, José António Tenente, Maria Gambina, Nuno Baltazar and Nuno Gama.
“Paintings, sculptures, jewellery and other objects enter into dialogue with fashion pieces that reinvent, narrate, decipher or complete them,” the exhibit website also stated. “These are unexpected encounters that show how the aesthetics, ideas and sensibilities that inhabit this Collection can illuminate the world of fashion.”
In short, it is an invitation to “understand how beauty travels through time”, via diaphanous couture gowns that reveal to the attentive eye what “texts do not always say: hierarchies, aspirations, social rituals, silences and revelations.”
“From classical painting to contemporary design, clothing becomes a mirror that shows that art and fashion have always shared the desire to narrate the human condition,” it concluded.
