High Concepts

(NEW YORK) Helmut Lang is preparing to showcase his first major series of art. The former fashion designer, who established hl-art in 2005, will unveil his latest work on August 31 with his first solo exhibit entitled Helmut Lang--Alles Gleich Schwer (or All has equal weight) in Hanover, Germany at Kestnergesellschaft.

It was curated by Frank-Thorsten Moll and Neville Wakefield, the latter of which interviewed Lang for the journal when he debuted Next Ever After last November in Brooklyn at the magazine's gallery. This solo showing, which runs through November 2, is part of a major fashion initiative called Hanover Goes Fashion, for which the city's leading museums and art institutions are organizing 10 exhibitions.

"The continuity is that I'm expressing what's important to me with the appropriate form, content and context through different mediums and other dimensions," Lang said of his show, which departs from his theme of the body's social articulation through clothes. Instead, it features objects that "address the intersection of public and private experience as it is recorded through mythologies both personal and shared."

Drawing on references as varied as the folkloric rites of maypole ceremonies and the exploration of surrogate skin, Lang has created a series of installations, objects and possibilities that integrate an intimate knowledge of the human form with the personal mythologies and abstract arrangements of the world at large. The artistic endeavor was originally conceived in part for Louise Bourgeois. Jenny Holzer. Helmut Lang, staged at Kunsthalle, Vienna in 1998.

A catalogue by the same name as the exhibit will also be produced in English and German versions. It was feature a greeting by the State Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Christian Wulff and contributing text by Wakefield, Veit Görner, Jenny Holzer, Frank-Thorsten Moll, Ulf Poschardt, Alice Rawsthorn and Gisela Vetter-Liebenow.
JIM SHI