Arts & Culture
127
Louis Vuitton’s fl agship store is hosting one of the best exhibitions of contemporary art held in Macau
Star chic I
BY EMANUEL GRAÇA
f the names Damien Hirst and Yan Lei make you sit up, then get up and head to the Louis Vuitton fl agship
store in Macau, at the One Central shop- ping mall. There you can appreciate art works not only by these two but also by Cai Guoqiang, the Yangjiang Group and David Spriggs, among others. The brand’s gallery is hosting what
is arguably the best contemporary art exhibition Macau has seen recently. Dubbed ‘Raining Stars’, the exhibition showcases world-famous artists from different cultures interpreting fi reworks, a beloved Chinese invention. “We thought it would be very in-
teresting to link it to the fi reworks festi- val that annually takes place in Macau. Hence the theme of ‘Raining Stars’, with works that are more or less directly in- spired by this fi rework theme,” said president of Louis Vuitton Asia-Pacifi c Jean-Baptiste Debains. “For us, it is a celebration of Macau,
trying to bring a cultural dimension to the experience that people can have
here. This store in Macau is one of the most beautiful we have anywhere in the world, by its size, by its location. “We want, through this exhibition,
to make it a destination, both for peo- ple who live in Macau and for visitors around the world that come here.” Mr Debains did not disclose how
much Louis Vuitton has invested in the exhibition but he says more similar events are poised to take place in the store’s gallery, even if a schedule has yet to be decided. “What we want is to bring more than a shopping experience,” he said.
Bad boy in town Considered one of the bad boys of the mainland art scene, Yan Lei came to Macau to attend last month’s opening. His work “Landing Shanghai B” is
one of the pieces on display. The six tonal- ist paintings of fi reworks are abstractions from a set of photographs taken during Lunar New Year celebrations in 2006. Yan himself never actually touched
the canvas. A group of contributors did the paintings under his supervision. “I wanted to convey an attitude by art,” he says. “Without touching it directly, art is even more pure. Art is the concept in the mind, not doing the work yourself.” This is not Yan’s fi rst coopera-
tion with a luxury brand. Previously he has participated in exhibitions held by other fashion houses. It seems a diffi cult match with his “enfant terrible” image. “This helps my work to be seen by more people. Many museums have collected my work, like New York’s MoMA and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but these partnerships allow me to reach out to people better,” he says.
Calligraphy in the sky Also in Macau for the exhibition’s open- ing were the Yangjiang Group, compris- ing Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin. The trio’s work is represented by for Not Being Cautious
“Regretful
When Attacked”. This is a set of four photos and a video of a 2007 fi reworks performance presented by the group on the River Mersey during the opening night of a Tate Liverpool exhibition of contemporary Chinese art called ‘The Real Thing’. Their performance combined fi re-
works, sound and lasers and took the form of a choreographed battle between two opposing sides that culminated with
these words fl aming across the OCTOBER 2010
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