The Sarabande Foundation is the legacy of Lee Alexander McQueen. It is a charitable foundation born out of the idea that the creatively fearless artists and designers of tomorrow should be supported. Named after McQueen’s 2007 Spring/Summer collection, the foundation provides scholarships to students at graduate and postgraduate level, as well as artist studios at Sarabande HQ in London for designers, artists, and jewellers. This May, some of the Foundation’s most promising artists, designers, and jewelers are being showcased in Hong Kong, at store JOYCE Central, because, frankly, buying art in department stores must be the 21st century version of buying a new pair of driving shoes and a lipstick you perhaps don’t need.
The artists have been asked to make site-specific work. Artist Joshua Beaty will use locally sourced objets trouvés to fill the theatrical vitrine of the flagship store, while artist Saelia Aparicio will live paint murals over the course of three days, inhabiting the lobby walls with her signature tree people and sculptures, and jewelry artist Castro Smith will be available to custom engrave pieces for customers by appointment at his in-store workbench.
It opens this Friday, May 17 (there’s also a pop-up store featuring previous Sarabande awardee Craig Green), and a creative salon the night before with Founding Trustee Trino Verkade, who worked closely with McQueen and played a pioneering role in the development of his business and career. Here are some of the featured artists:
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Jasmin Reif.
Reif’s Judas Companion label aims to unite art and fashion through wearable structures. At the center of her practice are “grotesque masks made of soft yarn and oversized garments made of recycled leather.” Reif’s German heritage and the effects of Brexit have recently impacted her work, with her current project dealing with England as her “home,” in the form of a wearable sculpture depicting a fully furnished house.
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Joshua Beaty.
Beaty studied MA Fashion Design at Central St Martins, and was chosen for the scholarship by previous Sarabande Studios resident Craig Green back in October 2015. The artist explains that his work is grounded in his intense research into concept and process. His preferred techniques are those that are seen as ‘lost’ or ‘dying crafts’, and he likes his creations to have a strong sense that each part, at some point, has been touched by a humans. In his own words, his work “always tries to find some kind of relationship in the frictions between ugliness and beauty”.
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Saelia Aparicio.
Reif’s work compares different dimensions of the absurd: the real world in which we live, and the fictional one she creates. The artists tends to use surreal and black humor in her work, as seen in these depressed looking stools.
The JOYCE x Sarabande Foundation pop-up store will open on May 17th until June 12th.