Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York

Shannon: What is CHANEL Mobile Art and what was your overall impression of the exhibit?

Antonio: The futuristic pre-fab starship traveling museum, designed by London Architect Zaha Hadid as the abstraction of an handbag, has landed in Central Park last week directly from Tokyo! It was commissioned by the smart, multi-talented fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. The structure was designed to be traveling as the next venue will be in London, Paris and Moscow. At first look from the outside, the mobile art pavilion seems to have a very simple organic shape, but each panel is a non-standard panel in fiber glass assembled in place. The interior is much more complex; the structure itself becomes a sculpture generated with the latest algorithmic generative software. The interior is like a proliferation of undefined rooms, cavern populated by art.

My overall impression of the operation is that it is a good and a well accomplished linkage of architecture-art-fashion. 

Shannon: Was it inspiring to you as an artist?

Antonio: Today's knowledge is no longer static and structured, and this is a clear invitation to me to explore, like the avant garde used at the beginning of the last century. It's the contamination of different fields of creativity and knowledge. What was most inspiring is the way architecture, art and fashion were used together to convey an advertising project and a marketing operation around the CHANEL brand. Despite the New York Times review of the starship museum as a "black hole of bad art and superficial temptations," I think to reconsider the way we think about advertising with the implementation of art and architecture can be inspiring.

When advertising conquers with a non-subliminal project of the territory of architecture-art-fashion to go around the world, it can be an interesting operation. Is it more interesting to be seduced by an obvious marketing operation where artists from all over the world are asked to create around the idea of handbags-- or is it still more interesting to assist advertisers' plagiarism of artists' ideas to create the same boring well educated mass-appeal?

Shannon: Was it unique?

Antonio: Not really. In the past, art has always served power and market in a different way. When art is free, in this process, then the result is more inspiring and unique. Andy Warhol made this process public with his art. There are clear moments in history when this phenomenon happened, for example, during the Italian Renaissance. Lorenzo de Medici, in Florence, used to hire many artists in his court to build and create a sophisticated image of his court, that not only would please his gentle soul or caress the public's eyes, but mostly to sell a logo and to impose his family brand in Florence during those days. The idea was to use art and architecture as a tool to reach public consensus for the name of his family in the delicate game of political power at the time. The convergence of art, architecture and fashion is the research for many magazines that are born in the past 5 years under this linkage. Even the most updated and sophisticated brands will take a new route of experimenting their idea of products in the contemporary lifestyle throughout art.

For example, Louis Vuitton had created, with the help of many artists, its icon brand, or the sculpture of Richard Prince displayed in different cities, or the creation of Takashi Murakami that displayed and sold many of his product-creations for Louis Vuitton in the Brooklyn Museum in New York and Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs recently shot Victoria Beckam for his shoes' ad where he photographed just her feet sticking out of a bag. No any other part of Victoria are in the photos. Many famous architects give their name to create icon images and products for brands, like Rem Koolhaas for Prada and Frank Ghery for Tiffany.

So there was nothing unique or new in CHANEL's Mobile Art. Just a different name. What must be unique is the creative result.

With my work, I am very interested in cross disciplines. I have designed some boutiques as if they were art installations and it seems that customers are responding with enthusiasm to a new approach of conceiving the space as they look for an experience that can seduce them while shopping. I've also completed an advertising campaign with my artwork for an Italian jewelry line. Showcasing a new, creative approach to the public with an aesthetic mix of art-architecture-design-fashion is the key to success.

Shannon: Which artists seemed to have made more of a statement?

Antonio: There were many interventions, some more subtle and some very literal. I found the work of David Levinthal with a beautiful woman face-wrapped with leather for bag, and the Tabaimo's Installation 'at the bottom,' very interesting .

Shannon: What do you think an exhibit like this will do for the CHANEL brand?

Antonio: The CHANEL brand will strongly benefit from an exhibit like this. Hopefully many more brands will try to break the rules of traditional advertising and find an interesting synergy with artists and architects to educate the public to think in more unexpected ways of the language of the market and the way it affects their lifestyle. Events like this make me wonder if the market is still following the consumer's lifestyle, or the consumer's lifestyle is following the market.

You can learn more about Antonio via his website: www.antoniopiosaracino.com. CHANEL's Mobile Art will be open in Central Park until November 9th. If you've been to it, I'd love to hear your take on it.