“I encourage everyone to take advantage of the golden opportunity to see this spectacular collection of modern art by world-renowned designers, architects and artists. At the same time, works from several local artists will also be on display,” he added.

Symbol of elegance and exquisite French lifestyle, Louis Vuitton has maintained close links with the arts for more than a century and a half. Founded during the industrial era, Louis Vuitton has always been in step with its time, working with the best engineers, decorators and creators. Inventor of the art of travel, the man Louis Vuitton and his successors have forged a strong relationship between traditional know how and present day design.

The arrival of Marc Jacobs and artistic director in 1997 reinforced and underlined the link with artists. Exemplary collaboration with Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince has marked the history of the relationship between art and commerce. In Hong Kong, the Louis Vuitton and Art exhibition brings this exciting story to life, analysing the unique creative process through installations, where works of art and archive documents are brought together.

The Collection, a Choice
This exhibition of a selection of works from the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création brings together a small number of significant large-scale works (paintings, photographs, video installations) by European, American and Chinese artists. These reflect an urban and energetic culture, leading to fictional landscapes, somewhere between dream and adventure.

Artists include: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Chan, Cao-Fei, Yang Fudong, Gilbert & George, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Andreas Gursky, Pierre Huyghe, Jeff Koons, Bertrand Lavier, Christian Marclay, Richard Prince.

Works by recognised and newly-discovered international artists working in the medium of video will be shown : Bas Jan Ader (Netherlands), Kader Attia, Cyprien Gaillard, Ange Leccia, Philippe Parreno (France), Olga Chernysheva (Russia), David Claerbout (Belgium), Trisha Donnelly, Ryan Trecartin (USA), Steve Mc Queen (Great Britain), Anri Sala (Albania), Zhou Tao (China), Rosemarie Trockel (Germany) among others.

In a developing open-minded spirit, the Foundation was eager to invite ‘emerging’ Hong Kong artists to take part in this exhibition with the help of a young art critic and curator who lives in China. / From Hong Kong Museum of Art

As China sets out to rebuild its artistic heritage, support is coming from an unexpected source: the global luxury industry. The big brands have targeted China – both for exhibition displays and for collaborations with contemporary artists.

When the new 8,000 square meter, or 87,000 square foot, contemporary art and design museum is constructed next to the iconic “bird’s nest” Olympic stadium, its contents might include a portrait of Christian Dior, created in incense ash by the artist Zhang Huan.

Or, alongside the wine bottles in iron by Zheng Guogu, there may be a similar contemporary copper work re-creating Dior fragrances.

Those two objects will go on display next week as “Christian Dior & Chinese Artists” opens in an industrial space in Beijing, developed as an interior Chinese garden and displaying a capsule fashion history focusing on the founder Christian Dior and the current designer John Galliano.

Over the last two decades, there have been numerous collaborations between art and fashion. But it seems that the Chinese cannot get enough of fashion as art – and of their own artists at the epicenter of high fashion.

Two exhibitions have shown the heritage of European fashion houses to the Chinese. In March, Ferragamo held its 80th birthday celebrations in Shanghai, with an exhibition of Salvatore Ferragamo at the Museum of Contemporary Art; and with a fashion show staged at the new Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal.

“The ‘Evolving Legend’ exhibition was inaugurated in Shanghai to celebrate the anniversary and our 15 years relationship with China,” said Michele Norsa, CEO of Ferragamo. He says that after the exhibition of the Florentine shoemaker’s work moved on to Milan’s Triennale, where it closed last week, there are now plans to take the show elsewhere in  Asia.

Ferragamo established itself in Asia in the early 1970s and its first Chinese art collaborations go back to 1992, when an exhibition of 11 Chinese artists in different disciplines was held in its New York store, along with a sponsorship of a Chinese video art and photography exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York.

MaxMara, another Italian design house, opened its traveling exhibition “Coats” last month at the Namoc Museum in Beijing with a fashion show and a dinner at the Tai Miao temple that was attended by internationally known Chinese celebrities. They included the actress Maggie Cheung, famous for the movie “In the Mood for Love,” and Guo Jingjing, a gold-medal-winning diver at the Beijing Olympics.

Louis Vuitton, whose roots in China go back to 1979, has seen its artistic collaborations flower. As well as sponsoring a Sovereign Asia Art Prize in 2007, Vuitton brought art this year to its two Hong Kong stores, with Zhan Wang creating a steel sculpture in the Central district, and the shop in the Tsim Sha Tsui area across Victoria Harbor displaying work from the famous Chinese actor and photographer Chow Yun Fat.

Earlier this year, Vuitton held in its Champs-Elysées flagship store in Paris an exhibition inspired by André Citroën’s epic journey down the “Silk Road” in 1931, including Chinese video artists and photographers.

For next week’s exhibition, Sidney Toledano, CEO of Dior, was determined to do more than sponsor an art show.

“It’s not about branding and marketing – it is about having a cultural impact,” Toledano says. “We could just have supported the artists, but the idea was to let them work a Dior theme, to see how they looked at Monsieur Dior himself and the Dior universe. When I saw the finished works, done over three months, I was impressed by their creativity. It was almost like watching a couture collection develop.”

The 21 artists whose works go on display from Nov. 16 at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing include some of China’s edgiest artists. Their work, as seen currently at the new Charles Saatchi Gallery in London, might raise a few eyebrows in a dialogue between art and fashion.

Zhang Huan’s personal and politicized sculptures and ash paintings will face off with the personage of Christian Dior; while Li Songsong is exchanging three paintings – of Boccaccio’s “The Decameron,” of the National People’s Congress and of the crumpled wings of a fallen airplane – for the ultimate fashion statement: a giant Lady Dior bag in neon lights.

It seems unlikely that Liu Wei’s sculpture of a turd will be redeveloped for Dior. But the hollow, robotic eyes of Zhang Xiaogang’s paintings will be viewed in a vision of Dior Homme, designed by Kris Van Assche; and Liu Wei’s extraordinary effects with dog chewings will be applied to Dior’s “Cocotte” dress.

Pearl Lam, the director of the Contrasts Gallery of Chinese contemporary art which opened in Hong Kong in 1992 and later in Shanghai and Beijing, says that the line between art and commerce has never been drawn in China, because traditionally “artists” and their work were not defined. Known as “literati,” they might paint, write calligraphy, compose poetry, literature and music, while at the same time designing with craftsmen anything from teapots to houses.

“In ancient times in China, art was not created for selling – only for self-cultivation,” says Lam, explaining that the artworks were given away to those who had been appreciative and the literati’s highest standing was to be qualified to join the imperial court.

Cut to the 21st century, and commercialism and consumerism have inevitably entered the equation, with the catalyst in the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and his collaborations with Louis Vuitton.

“When a Chinese artist, like Zhang Huan, accepts a commission from Dior to create works about Dior, he is in fact pushing the boundaries to react to the Chinese traditional values of art and to question: what is art in the context of China’s 21st century,” says Lam, who claims that all artists understand the power of marketing by fashion houses and know that through fashion exposure, the artist’s name might become a brand.

It might sound like a collaboration between two hungry groups – the Chinese dignitaries, eager to find the home-grown art to fill a new architectural wonder; and Western brands trying to create a name and good will in China. But if commerce encourages art, whatever the motive, it seems a positive step. And with the Chinese, even in tough economic times, acting as suppliers of products to the world, is it surprising that the country’s art has become a marketable commodity?

By Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

Luxury maisons, Modern Art, Asia become the new area of luxury marketing. Chanel’s HK Mobile Art, LV’s japanese multicolor looking, and now Hermès scarves exposition in Beijing from March 25 to April 16 2008. Who else?

Actually, “The Tale of Silk” Hermès’ Scarves Exhibition has just been launched at the Shanghai Art Museum last year in September. Step by Beijing in 2008 is not a coincidence.

The show marks the 70th anniversary of its first scarf and the 10th anniversary of the renowned brand entering the Chinese market. The exhibition comprised 21 section displaying 46 pieces of scarves selected from 1500 styles designed by Hermes in the past 70 years.

Besides, specially designed scarves coming from skilled Chinese artists were also showcased during the event.

Hermès specially invited Mr. Hilton McConnico to design the exquisite and fine scarves show. Stylist, designer, photographer, filmmaker and screen writer, this American artist living in Paris is keen on telling stories with colors, especially about silk. This time he will create a dialogue between the audience and Hermès scarves, with the participation of the Chinese artist Ding Yi, the film director Li Yu and the dancer and choreographer Huang Doudou.

The monthlong Exhibition will present 19 series of exhibits from scarf artists from all over the world. Installed with multi-support, danse, paint, video…, mise-en-scene with lanterns or clothes to give a peculiar eastern touch, the program will take the audience to an abundant visual experience and the pure spirit of the Hermès silk art.

Beijing Today’s Art Museum: Building 4, 32 Baiziwan Rd, Chaoyang district. From March 25 to April 16 2008, everyday from 10 a.m. to 17 p.m.

An UFO landed on the roof of Star Ferry Car park nearby Hongkong bay, 27th Feb (till 5th April). It is in this futuristic, shiny, white, curved pavilion that Chanel launched its first stop of modern art exhibition called ‘Mobile Art’.

The strange futuristic pavilion as itself an artwork is created by British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Made of 300 blocks of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastics) and assembled in 4 weeks, the exhibition venue becomes the pearl shining in HongKong Central skyline. When night comes, it is covered in neon blue.

The modern art exhibition consists of artistic interpretations of the iconic Chanel handbag. Visitors are encouraged to wear headphones to listen to music by Jeanne Moreau specifically designed in mandarin and cantonese to voyage in « ce film en 3D, ce paysage qui bouge » (a real landscape and a 3-dimensional film which comes to life) promised by Fabrice Bousteau, Mobile Art Exhibition curator.

The exhibit features works by 20 international artists from China, France, South Korea, Iran, Belgium, Russia and the United States among other countries. A giant sculpture of a black Chanel handbag that encases a video, by Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury; two stuffed pigs next to encased Chanel handbags called “Jesus Love and 2 Handbags”, by Belgian artist Wim Delyoye. Japanese artist Tabaimo designed a black hole with graphic animation. It’s her interpretation of unlocking the secrets hidden inside a handbag. We can also find the creations of french artists Daniel Buren “Untitled 2008″ and Sophie Calle, the shanghainese filmmaker Yang Fudong. A black poetic room under Paris touch by Argentine artist Leandro Erlich; a bouquet of flowers in mosaic by Taiwanese artist Michael Linn with the crystal clouds by Italien artist Loris Cecchini; gag videos of Russian Blue Noses and bondage photos of Araki with chaines of Chanel handbag.

Bousteau says the exhibit is intended to be experimental and to move art away from the more traditional museum setting. “Mobile Art in my view is an expression of utopia and the future. It’s a completely weird architectural project because it’s the first building in the world which will travel, which will circulate and which is nomadic.”

The exhibition will travel through Asia, the U.S., London, Moscow and arrive in Paris in 2010. The next stop after Hong Kong is Tokyo.