“No such thing as history” is the title of the first exhibition at the two story Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton Munich, which we visited yesterday. As typical for Vuitton everything is organized perfectly. Every visitor can first enjoy a private guided tour through the exhibition and take more time to discover the artworks alone afterwards.

“No such thing as history”, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Munich, photo@http://superfuture.com/supernews/munich-no-such-thing-as-history

As there are great reports (German Vogue and Wallpaper) on the feminist movement photographs by Annette Kelm, which have exclusively been commissioned for this exhibition I am going to skip this and concentrated on my very personal view and emotions during our visit.

Every featured artwork seems to have a historic reference point. Starting from that point the artist preserves a part of the history but radically breaks with another. Only in case of a good balance between the “preserved” and the “altered” part, history becomes immortal and contemporary for ever.

Sol LeWitt’s open cubes, for example, were created back in the 60ies and 70ies made of aluminum or steel and lacquered in bright white. (By the way, in my opinion they also were the starting point for Pierre Hardy’s fabulous cuff bracelet!) Henrik Olesen, whose installation “Cubes” (1998-2008) is featured in the exhibition made his cubes out of polystyrene and brown tape. In this way he uses LeWitt’s open cube shape, changes the material thus making it appropriate for the 90ies deconstructivism.

Sol LeWitt “Cube without a cube”, photo@http://www.dailyicon.net/2009/02/sol-lewitt-cube-structures/

Pierre Hardy cuff, 2014,  photo@http://www.mytheresa.com

Henrik Olesen “Cubes (after Sol LeWitt)”, photo@http://thecollectorsvenice.com/_pag/artists_OLESON.html

Another example is Lukas Duwenhögger’s “The Adventures of Venus – Her marvelous Experience at the Hands of Italians”, 2005. His starting point of course is incredibly easy to detect! Its Botticelli’s “The birth of Venus” from 1485. While Botticelli expresses the Renaissance theme of concentration on the intellectual aspect by covering the physical. Duwenhögger adds just a few elements and changes another few and refers the whole thing to the wish of many societies to cover homosexuality, see Russia for reference. In this way he gives Botticellis master piece a totally new meaning and actuality.

“The birth of Venus”, Sandro Botticelli, 1485 (Uffizi gallery, Florence), photo@http://en.wikipedia.org

Lukas Duwenhögger’s ‘The Adventures of Venus – Her marvelous Experience at the Hands of Italians’, 2005
phot@http://www.wallpaper.com

Last but not least I want to point out a very special artwork. An artist, whose name, I sadly don’t remember cut out the last full stop from Anne Frank’s Diary and inserted it just in the middle of a white sheet of paper in an attempt to give new life to it. To make it a piece of contemporary art….?!

Last full stop from Anne Frank’s diary on white paper, Louis Vuitton Espace Culturel, Munich, photo@http://superfuture.com

For me the whole exhibition is very much in the spirit of Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquière and the never ending quest of the reinterpretation of the monogram. Take some heritage – respect a part & add something new – make it contemporary!

Funnily the exhibition coincides with the chocolate box installations in the Vuitton windows worldwide. The same installation was featured in the “Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs” exhibit at the  Arts Décoratifs back in 2012 where it showed all the bags and alterations of the logo, which have been created so far! Coincidence or carefully planned!? I am not sure… but can only remember to stop at the Munich Maison and visit the Espace to everyone, who is in the city!