Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum presents "The People of Tomorrow" in Shanghai
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum presents "The People of Tomorrow" interactive installations exhibition by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, which is dedicated to now and future, presented by crossover fashion icon for Chinese audiences.
The interactive installation exhibition is part of the West Bund Art Museum and the Pompidou Center's five-year exhibition cooperation project, which will soon bring a new totem installation. The three totem installations have the themes of "nature", "city" and "universe" respectively. They stand in the outdoor public area of the West Bund Art Museum, inviting every audience to stop and interpret and interpret the totems in their own way and language. The interaction between symbols and colors awakens childlike innocence and stimulates innate artistic perception. As one of the highlights of the "West Bund Art Museum Summer Time" special summer program, the outdoor totem installation will be open to the public for free until August 31.
Born in 1949, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is one of the early figures that spearheaded the crossover between fashion and art, smashing the boundaries between the two in the 1980s. His clothes were designed as performing sculptures and living paintings (tableaux vivants). He experimented with textiles by creating clothes from everyday items such as cloths, sponges and pieces of waxed canvas. He often displaced disciplines to hybridise them: fashion, ancient and contemporary arts, domestic materials, flags, music, etc. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has built an artistic form of writing that is composed of signs, symbols and colors, a “poetic system”of drawings that appeals to emotions and memories. His work is“popular”, in that it addresses everyone, without rank or limit. In a creative career spanning half a century, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has collaborated with remarkable Pop Artists from Andy Warhol to Keith Haring, and has designed costumes for pop icons like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Beyoncé.
The artist hopes to stimulate people's artistic sensibility and draw their attention to the most powerful signs of our times. He intended to utilize such an element, merged with magic, to open up an immense universe both chromatic and poetic to the audiences. Flags, totems and emblematic colors from his work echo those of the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project, forming 8 educational interactive devices based on signs, symbols and universal language. The exhibition invites all those young at heart to search for the magical key to retaining their childhood authenticity. As a special edition of the exhibition’s first showcase in China, the artist also created an exclusive "Guardian" image for West Bund Museum, hoping to imbue Chinese children and adults with the courage to face the future, to keep the peace, and to protect and guard their inner hearts.
