Mysterious Margiela brings his hair-raising art to Seoul

Martin Margiela, the former fashion designer and founder of French luxury fashion house Maison Margiela, is frequently described as influential, but elusive. Since 1988 when he started his label until leaving the fashion scene in 2009, he's been...

″Redhead″ (2019-22) [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Martin Margiela, the former fashion designer and founder of French luxury fashion house Maison Margiela, is frequently described as influential, but elusive.

Since 1988 when he started his label until leaving the fashion scene in 2009, he’s been regarded as unlike any other fashion designer. In addition to his unconventional approach to fashion, he’s refused to hold in-person interviews or be photographed, and even declined taking a bow after his shows.

Just when he was beginning to fade in the fashion world's memory, Margiela reemerged as an artist in October 2021 with his first solo show held in Paris.

″Hair Portraits″ (2015-22) [LOTTE MUSEUM OF ART]

Margiela is now holding his third show ever in Seoul, following Beijing, but his stance on remaining "invisible" has not changed.

His first Korean show kicked off last month at the Lotte Museum of Art in Songpa District, southern Seoul. As expected, the 65-year-old titular Belgian artist did not attend.

Because he was not present to explain the intentions behind his works, and there are rarely any written descriptions available on the exhibition walls, even his art is profoundly mysterious with a touch of bizarreness.

A staff at the Martin Margiela exhibition lowers the projector screen of ″Body Part b&w″ (2018-20) as part of the piece's performance. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Goo Hye-jin, who curated the show, emphasized his desire for anonymity.

“We never even met him while organizing the exhibit. We’ve been in contact with him through email but only his coworkers flew in to create the pieces,” she said during a press event last month.

The exhibition space was arranged like a maze, Goo said, “so the audience will see the white walls before the actual art pieces. It’s meant to encourage them to think about what they are about to see and fully immerse themselves into the exhibit.”

Mystery is a theme throughout the exhibition, as seen with “Dust Cover” (2021), which is a large installation consisting of a leather cloth covering an unknown object, because Margiela pursues “the essence” in his works and invites his audience to contemplate about it.

″Torso Series″ (2018-22) [LOTTE MUSEUM OF ART]

The eeriness of his pieces mainly comes from his longtime fascination with hair, tracing back to his childhood, as Margiela’s father was a hairdresser. Hair was also a recurring theme in his previous shows from his eponymous brand, Maison Margiela.

Works on display, like “Vanitas” (2019) or “Redhead” (2019-22), are faceless silicon spheres implanted with actual human hair that has been parted symmetrically down the middle. The latter sees different versions of hair dyed red, a color perceived to be “sensual” by the artist.

The former sees five heads assembled in a row, each representing a different time in a person’s life. Childhood to later life is depicted through the hair colors which range from blonde to silver.

“Vanitas,” which means “emptiness” in Latin, symbolizes the vanity in life, and that no one can escape death, the curator said.

″Cartography″ (2019) [LOTTE MUSEUM OF ART]

Another hair-inspired piece, “Cartography” (2019), features large printed images of the top of heads. Arrows point out different hair partings, but visitors should pay attention, as staff frequently swap the images. It is difficult to tell which body part is being highlighted in the sculptures “Torso Series” (2018-22) and Margiela himself refrains from providing answers, leaving it up to the audience’s imagination.

According to the curator, the reason for Margiela’s in-depth studies on the human body has to do with modern society’s beauty standards created by capitalism.

This explains why he constructs dramatic visualizations of deodorants and red fingernails; Margiela believes that the very idea of rejecting the process of getting older or transforming one’s outer appearance to be “unnatural.”

″Red Nails model″ (2021), left, and ″Red Nails″ (2019) [SHIN MIN-HEE]

“People are dyeing their hair or painting their nails because it’s what industrialization says is beautiful nowadays,” curator Goo said. “We keep changing our bodies; so the torso sculptures try to reflect the discrepancy between what modern day defines to be attractive and what an individual would think otherwise.”

There is a certain absurdity and uncanniness in Margiela’s artworks — so much hair — and visitors may be taken aback if they were expecting something similar to the garments by Maison Margiela.

″Vanitas″ (2019) [LOTTE MUSEUM OF ART]

The video in the last section of the exhibition, which shows a woman who laughs manically and whose face is completely covered in hair, leaves a striking impression.

“It’s indeed baffling that something like this can happen in a museum,” curator Goo said. “But he’s already been known as an extraordinary figure in fashion and now he’s changed his medium of expression to art.”

The Martin Margiela exhibition runs until March 26. Tickets are 19,000 won ($14.90) for adults. The Lotte Museum of Art is open every day from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]