Helmut Lang checked out of the fashion industry 15 years ago, but his life as an artist has only intensified.
In 1997, the Viennese-born Lang broke away from other designers in Europe and moved his business to New York. His decision to show his collection in New York and at the beginning of New York Fashion Week prompted organizers to shift the entire show calendar so that New York preceded London, Milan and Paris. Not one to trail the pack, he had staged his first runway show at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1986 and years later he ditched shows altogether, preferring to stream his collection online.
Fashion enthusiasts in need of something, anything Helmut Lang will have to make do with a commemorative $45 MoCA Westport T-shirt, or they can spring for Lang’s art, which starts at $35,000 and will be available via von Ammon’s Washington, D.C., gallery. H.L.: For me, personally, and in either discipline, I didn’t have a specific source of inspiration per se. It is all about going ahead and intuitively finding out along the way. Whenever I am at the point when a piece is strong enough to fight me back, I will consider to stop or continue.H.L.: Art has no limitations in any way — neither in form, material, or anything else, so everything is a possibility.H.L.
H.L.: The studio fire only changed the location where I work. At this point, I had already donated about 800 mostly complete silhouettes from my personal archive to 20 museums worldwide, as well as the entire corporate identity archive. About 9,000 single pieces, which had been partly damaged by the fire, were shredded to be used as raw material for new work. A good part of them are shown at the exhibition at MOCA Westport.