Fashion Imprints: From Picasso to Andy Warhol-Master of Lexus Dialogue

The Shanghai Art Gallery officially opened the exhibition Fashion Imprints: From Picasso to Andy Warhol-Master of Lexus Dialogue, which is sponsored by a well-known car company LEXUS, on March 11. In collaboration with London Fashion and Fabric Museum, the art gallery selected more than 10 classic artists, such as Picasso, Dali, Milo, Matisse, and Andy Warhol.

The gallery displays 95 rare yet representative fabrics in total. Walking through the exhibition, visitors will be able to understand how these modern art masters combined advanced art with clothing, textiles, and other fashionable fabrics.

There are five sections at this exhibition: “The origin,” which explains the history of textile design; “Fashion surreal,” showcasing modern art in 1990s America; “Oil painting and clothing fabric,” which displays the fusion of oil painting and fashion fabrics; “The unknown Picasso,” which presents fabric art back in the 1960s; and the “Pop Art Pioneer” section.

All of the artists in this exhibition show their different techniques of presenting fabric art. For instance, some fabric artists present their work as screen printed cotton furniture cloth, while others present them as hand crocheted wool blanket. One example of this is Ben Nicholson, a leading figure in British constructivist and fabric art in the 20th century. Other artists follow simpler styles, mostly using a combination of various geometric shapes in their pattern design. Still others use relatively more complex and abstract figures in their designs.

Another highlight of this exhibition is its sponsor, the Lexus car company. Through this visual feast that combines art design and fashion life, Lexus hopes to share the concept of “art into life” to the public. This concept is also applied to the artwork of the fabric artists who displayed their artworks in this exhibition. Those artworks are created for people in everyday life, just like the cars produced by the Lexus car company. Haoyi Ikeda, the deputy general manager of Lexus in China expressed, “We hope our cars can echo the exhibition and bring inspiration and beauty to the lives of more people as those artworks did.”

Featured Image – Fabric Display Photo Courtesy of Bitaotu website

by Jaclyn Li