Venice Biennale of Architecture 2014
Spazio Punch, Venice, UK
June 7 – November 23, 2014
The direction of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition was appointed by La Biennale di Venezia to Rem Koolhaas, one of the most important and celebrated architects of the contemporary international scene. The Dutch architect structured Fundamentals on three main exhibitions, namely Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, Monditalia and Elements of Architecture.
“Incunabula” is a fully 3D printed dress commissioned as part of the “1914 Now: Four Perspectives on Fashion Curation” installation. Following Rem Koolhaas’s Venice Architecture Biennale “Absorbing Modernity: 1914 – 2014”, four curators were asked to respond to the exhibition with a fashion piece and film installation. Their results challenge modern-day concepts and push us to rethink contemporary fashion.
The collaborative work of Tobias Klein and London College of Fashion’s Alison Moloney together with Alexandra Verschueren was exhibited during Venice Biennale 2014.
Kaat Debo, Director of ModeMuseum Antwerp was one of the curators asked to participate in the project. After the dress was meticulously designed and 3D-printed (more specifically, selective laser sintered) in polyamide, Tobias Klein then grew crystals on the garment to further add to the idea of ornamentation and the poetics of modernity on top of the 3D-printed dress, a desire for the new. Kaat envisioned a garment that represents the tension between the “desire for ornament and the search for the modern”. That is why Kaat says it best when she describes the dress as a “post-natural distortion that finds balance through technology and craftsmanship”.
Alongside the films are essays from the curators and responses from architectural historians, practitioners, and critics, which explore how moments of modernity in fashion collide with those of other disciplines.
The films have been exhibited in Venice at Spazio Punch, from 6 November to 14 December 2014, and also feature in an international tour of fashion film festivals, gallery installations, and evening screenings including RIBA on 9 December 2014.