ROME — Two crocheted tentacles, each 14 metres long, hang over the entrance of the Valentino Foundation’s new show, the centrepiece of an exhibition turning Italian fashion’s most legendary house into a stage for contemporary art. We spoke to curator Pamela Golbin inside the galleries, where Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos and Valentino archive pieces share the floor in a dialogue years in the making. She told us the monumental Valkyrie sculpture in the first room was built in collaboration with 10 Roman institutions, including prisons, hospitals and children’s wards, and crocheted by hand by more than 200 people. Each subsequent room explores a different identity of the contemporary woman, from heroine and seductress to the Cinderella myth and the femme fatale, ending in a Garden of Eden. The show, Golbin said, is as much about the foundation’s social mission as it is about beauty.
Q. How did this exhibition come about?
“This exhibition began as a friendship. Valentino and Giammetti met Joana in her studio many years back. For this second exhibition here at the Foundation we still wanted to work around art and fashion, but this time in a very direct way.”
Q. The Valkyrie is the heart of the show, and many people helped make it. Who was involved?
“We commissioned this extraordinary monumental sculpture, the Valkyrie, which takes up the entire first room. For that we partnered with 10 exceptional Roman institutions, hospitals, prisons, children’s hospitals as well, to help us on this incredible journey. We are standing under a tentacle, one of the two 14-metre-long tentacles, completely composed of crocheted pieces made by over 200 people from these associations. So the exhibition brings together art, fashion and the social pillar of the foundation.”
Q. What was the biggest challenge?
“It wasn’t about challenge, it was about a conversation. That is the most exciting part. When you work with contemporary artists or designers, being able to speak with them and create a dialogue is what matters most. First I started working with Joana around colour. She uses fabrics as her colour palette. From there I chose the dresses that became the foundation of her inspiration for the Valkyrie.”
Q. How did the rest of the show take shape?
“For each installation we wanted to explore the different identities of a woman. The heroine with the Valkyrie. The prostitute with Strangers in the Night. Full Steam Ahead with the phoenix, the transformational woman. We are standing in the room dedicated to Marilyn, which is the Cinderella syndrome. Then we have the entire corridor about passion and the femme fatale, before ending in this magical space, the Garden of Eden, the woman as seductress, the bewitcher.”
Q. Do you have a favourite piece?
“All of them are my favourite, because they are all different facets of a woman’s personality today. That is what makes the show contemporary. A woman has many identities and a lot of work to do. But here it is all about beauty. How do we transform not only the domestic aspect of a woman’s life, which is very much part of Joana’s work, but also show the glamour and the beauty of who she is?”
