Third Installment To Take Place At Zaha Hadid-Designed Opera House#
The traveling Culture Chanel exhibition, which swept through Shanghai in early 2011 and the National Art Museum of China (NAMoC) in Beijing last November, is set to make its third China pit-stop at Guangzhou's Zaha Hadid-designed opera house.
Running from January 16 through March 3, the third China installment of Culture Chanel is again curated by Jean-Louis Froment, and in partnership with the Guangdong Museum of Art, includes around 400 pieces spanning the brand's history. As WWD notes, the centerpiece for the Guangzhou show is Pablo Picasso's backdrop for the 1924 ballet "Le Train Bleu," on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Additional items on show for the first time in China include works by Amadeo Modigliani and 30 drawings by Picasso.
Considering the warm reception Culture Chanel enjoyed in Shanghai and Beijing, we expect crowds in Guangzhou to flock to the third installment. As we wrote of the Beijing exhibition last year,
Wading through the packed house to gawk at the more than 400 items on display, skillfully organized by curator Jean-Louis Froment, we felt the exhibition was remarkably well done, particularly given that it was something of a commercial enterprise at a Chinese museum. Froment deserves credit for his inspired placing of important historical Chanel relics and the works of art from which the brand has derived inspiration over the decades.
We noticed some pieces on show attracting more attention than others, with a selection of scattered cases displaying rare diamond-encrusted Chanel jewelry (perhaps unsurprisingly) proving highly popular with locals.