Fair  October 16, 2024  Carlota Gamboa

Miu Miu's Feminist Fashion Statement at Art Basel Paris

Wikimedia Commons, Pavel Gromov

Prada shop in Milan, Italy. License

October 11th marked the beginning of Art Basel Paris’ third iteration, and with that, came an abundance of exhibitions springing up in the city of love: “Arte Povera,” at La Bourse de Commerce; the major group exhibition “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselman &…”— featuring work by Ai Weiwei, Marcel Duchamp, David Hammons, Hannah Höch, Jasper Johns, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Rauschenberg, Marjorie Strider, and Andy Warhol— at Fondation Louis Vuitton; and even James Terrell’s dual exhibition, on view at Almine Rech Gallery and Gagosian’s Bourget location. 

Buzzing with opportunity, the city is alive with an enormous breadth of work and allows space for a rich, visual conversation on where our contemporary sensibilities will be heading come the new year. 

Wikimedia Commons, Luis Villa del Campo

Sculpture by Robert Rauschenberg in Berlin/Germany (FOP in Germany for sculptures in public places). License

However, there was an unexpected player who decided to participate as well. Taking place in the Palais d’Iéna— the 1939 building which has hosted Miu Miu fashion shows for the last several years— Miuccia Prada staged her own five-day exhibition. “Tales and Tellers” is an exploration of feminine narratives through the aesthetic eye of Miu Miu. 

The Italian fashion brand, a sponsor for Art Basel Paris’ public program, has been collaborating with well-recognized artists for the last decade and has brought them all together on screens, big and small, for the show. 

The space, filled with actors and the many screens, displays the brand’s previously commissioned pieces. Brainchild of the interdisciplinary Polish artist Goshka Macuga and curated by the Director of MACBA, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Elvira Dyangani Ose, the project brings together artists and filmmakers to discuss the themes of storytelling and womanhood.

Part digital archive, part performance installation, the exhibition seeks to portray multi-layered experiences. By assigning one actor per film, audiences get to contemplate both narratives as they take place simultaneously. 

Cécile B. Evans, commissioned by Miu Miu to create moving image work for their Fall/Winter 2024 runway show, has a character, RECEPTION, that can be found on-screen in addition to the gallery space. 

Wikimedia Commons

Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, at the Venice Film Festival (1966). License

Her work, often interested in ritual, replica, staging, and symmetry, seems to question the impact of digital intervention in our day to day experience and how that may define our immediate future. The question of simulation is constantly reiterated and speaks to the complex expectations tied to feminine performance. 

As the actors hum, sew, skateboard, put on wigs, and change outfits— all Miu Miu, of course—  the screens play pieces by artists like Zoe Cassavetes, Agnès Varda, Ava DuVernay, Haifaa al-Mansour, Lila Avilés, and Miranda July. 

In total, the series is made up of 27 films and moving image installations, all focused on the feminine condition. Despite towing the line of reading like an advertisement, there is a purposeful desire to humanize these stories within the work. 

Can a female gaze be deployed onto high fashion editorials, which have been defining beauty standards for so long? Are these the steps to initiate something like that? The show seems to enmesh Miu Miu’s aesthetic with something livable and self-aware, not only crossing intertextually with the world of art, but into a philosophical one as well. 

About the Author

Carlota Gamboa

Carlota Gamboa is an art writer based in Los Angeles.

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