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Simona Peneva

The exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" presents the world of fashion and art, both together and separately. Elements of the global fashion scene have become interpretations that famous artists present in their "capsules". In a special interview for GRReporter readers, one of the curators of the exhibition, Nadia Argyropoulou, reveals details about it.

Would you say a few words about DESTE Foundation? Who are you?

DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art is a non-profit organization established in Athens in 1983 by collector Dakis Ioannou. Deste organizes a series of exhibitions and other activities (publications, award ceremonies) to promote contemporary art, its concept and position in life and culture, as well as the rise of artists from Greece and abroad. DESTE is active worldwide, it has a flexible schedule and cooperates with other institutions, museums, curators, researchers and the academic community.

What do visitors find in your current exhibition?

It is presented for the first time within a large Greek museum and is called ''destefashioncollection''. This is an ongoing project exploring the boundaries between art and the world of fashion. Destefashioncollection performs a new, multi-collective and completely developing process to which new proposals are constantly being added. Since 2007 and each year afterwards, an artist operating in the fields of art, literature, architecture, films and more has created a prototype collection, a "capsule collection", by selecting five models from international fashion during this period and offered their new interpretation. A new project originates from it that focuses on morphological, representative, material and social similarities and exchanges between fashion and art. The fashion elements that every artist chooses for the "capsule" and the works that he or she creates using motifs from it compose his or her annual participation. The exhibition called "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" collects the materials of the first eight years of the project development, namely from 2007 to 2014. The aim is to compare the objects selected by the artists from the world of fashion with their prototype interpretations, and to highlight how the elements of the collection relate or communicate with each other.

Is the exhibition connected more with art or with fashion?

The exhibition does not focus solely on art or fashion, but rather on the increasing tension between these two worlds, on the common traits that bind them or the distance that separates them.

How was the idea born? What inspired you?

The exhibition presents the February 1982 issue of the Artforum art magazine on the cover of which there is a cane corset from the 1982 spring-summer collection by Isssey Miyake. This issue provokes a serious dialogue between art and fashion, especially since in the introductory note publishers Germano Celant and Ingrid Sushi describe fashion not only as a system by which one can interpret the "political history of the body" but as a system having "super consciousness" about the history of its species, thus becoming a part of an interesting and unexpected dialogue with the artistic practices of the era. Collector Dakis Ioannou has kept the February 1982 issue and now that the destefashioncollection project is being revived, two decades later, and after conversations between Dakis Ioannou with artists and curators, it is an important indicator of thge project. The project explores the intense relationship between fashion and art, and promotes the change of roles between the participating artists who must act as curators, collectors, and even as historians, in order to form their capsule in a dialogue with the previous ones.

Who are the creators of the works that you present in the exhibition? What designers participate in it?

So far destefashioncollection has involved Michael Amzallag & Matthias Augustyniak (M/M Paris)-2007, Juergen Teller-2008, Helmut Lang-2009, Patrizia Cavalli-2010, Charles Ray-2011, Athina Rachel Tsangari-2012, Diller Scofidio+Renfro-2013, Maria Papadimitriou-2014. The project is ongoing and its presentation will continue on an annual basis in the future.

Has such an exhibition been organized before? If so, did it involve famous designers?

The destefashioncollection project is presented for the first time in its completeness. One part of it was presented in collaboration with concept store Barney's and under the editorial supervision of Dennis Freedman in 2012 in New York, where special facilities for the windows were created in collaboration with Michael Amzallag & Matthias Augustyniak (M/M Paris), Juergen Teller, Helmut Lang, Patrizia Cavalli and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and artist John Bock staged a special performance.

Do you address a specific audience?