URS FISCHER X LOUIS VUITTON: A paradoxical exercise of subversion at the expense of brand identity

This is a topic published in Vogue January 2021.

Touch or not touch the logo: there is the question.In an industry in which the experience of consumption is more than ever associated with emotions and feelings (that the heart has reason that reason does not understand), the alteration of the corporate image, of the saint and sign of the brand identityIt means playing it.This is not my logo, which have changed it to me, laments as soon as a rebranding exercise reaches the headlines.Peliaguda strategy however increasingly common.Maybe because today any executive understands how dangerous homogeneity is.That being identifiable in the collective as a synonym not only of product, but also of business ethos, is fine, but changing to reselling with the values of the moment and integrating new voices into your speech is even better.This is what the Urs Fischer would define as an act of subversion.

“Communicate with oneself, with their peers, is very easy.Fantasy is belonging to the group.It is an exclusive ideal from the point of view of purity.My identity includes these values;If you don't share them, you're out.And if you leave the circle, you are a traitor.Well, I like that idea of being a traitor, ”says the Swiss artist about his collaboration with Louis Vuitton.An entente that, in effect, goes through a particular review of the emblematic monogram of the French firm.“Transcend your field of action, move beyond your usual area, that's the interesting thing.And yes, you can call it subversion.That then those that you considered yours do not allow you to return is another matter.That always complicates things for everyone, I suppose also in fashion, ”he finishes with a laugh.

In the contemporary art scene, Fischer (Zurich, 1973) is precisely for an agitator.A subversive element, if you want;A free radical that operates in the sphere of situationism - where alienation, mercantile fetishism and spectacle -, surrealism, (neo) dadaism and pop, with the obvious intention of preventing his work to be pigeonholed."I would like to...[I think about it for a while] I have always longed to be like one of those artists capable of building a very concrete and specific universe, very focused on a single reason for creation.Like [Giorgio] Morandi, or Rothko or Yayoi Kusama, who repeat their messages in a powerful, beautiful and simple way through a single image.But I am just the opposite, ”he grants.To be a matter of art and fashion, the conversation (two hours of zoom, the good morning with the sun of Los Angeles, where it resides part of the year, on the face; the journalist in the dark Spanish afternoon-night), it isJust warn it, it takes almost from the beginning by more or less philosophical paths, partly by the creator's expertise to bring the issues to his land.To the question of how to work/manipulate an area like that of a bag, an article with a use and a function, responds by comparing the experience with reading a book ("closed, is asleep, until someone opens it and whatwake up.All we carry is because we decided to share, a story that accounts for certain people, as an open book.And every opportunity to open a book gives me a great desire ").If you have to talk about the creative process, it refers to the virtuous filigree of ice skaters, which must follow certain rules of execution even in the free exercise program ("I am doing an out -of -track pirouette, and on top I am very bad with the skates andI can slip.But well, that's beauty ").And by attacking the convoluted relationship of interest between art and fashion, it refers to the transmission of knowledge, although then there is at least something to scratch: “I think, as an idea, it is great.Everything that does the most porous things, which shortens separation, is a way to go forward ”.

Louis Vuitton x Urs Fischer is his passage forward.Or your flight forward.It happens in the form of a capsule collection, of course.Seven special editions of as many supervent bags of the house (the Speedy, the Neverfull, the Keepall, the Cabas...), purses, wallets and even a bag, in addition to a silk handkerchief, intervened by the artist with a certain sly stroke.The fact is that he was already familiar with the product, because last year he was one of the guests by the brand for the Artycapucines project, an artistic twist to the capucines that he resolved by adding a series of charms in the form of interchangeable fruit sculptures that byThe rest left the intact bag.“After that they told me if I would like to make a collection of scarves.I developed several ideas and asked me if they could move to a bag and, from there, everything was growing, ”he says.And define the adventure as "a small pleasure trip", in which his journey companions monopolize all his praise: "For someone like me, who works alone, it was a discovery.What creative team so fun, what people so cool.And what they know.It is a compendium of artisan wisdom accumulated for centuries.There is a lot of knowledge in fashion garments.For me it was such an immersion pleasure in a world that I knew nothing ”.

It is curious that, to have been married even if it was a couple of years with Tara Subkoff, founder and designer of Imitation of Christ."No, seriously, I'm not familiar at all.Everything is done in stages, of the design to marketing, and with a pounding efficiency.If a surface did not like it for too flat, the team did not stop until it found the way it worked.As an artist, it is something that I cannot ignore, because I am always looking for and learning, ”he admits.“On the other hand, it is a process with its own dynamics and synergy.And I believe in synergies.For me, they are the key to life ".

How is your relationship with fashion?

"A continuous change.You like to get clothes down.It is a bit a second skin and you don't mind mudding.If you have to dress well, it's just to represent you socially, play a paper.They tell you: "You have to go clean".Then, as a teenager, you want to be guay.You begin to develop your own history and create your identity, so you choose this instead of that, to differentiate yourself from the rest, make your own declaration of principles.The clothing is a trip: it starts on the surface and ends inside.I now enjoy how they make me feel certain garments, put them in a high.When you choose your clothes you make decisions based on what you belong to or what you need.I don't carry a suit ".

Are you one of those who believe that fashion is art?

"What is art?If you define what it is, I give you my answer ".

Often brete.Fischer says he doesn't know how to define the times we have had to live.The theme comes up to the current circumstances of the fashion business and the art market, irremediably integrated into the mechanism of the culture culture: “Everything is interconnected and monetized.Although the truth is that artists have always operated in the power scene, whether in the Courts, employed by Kings, or at the service of the Church.In any case, I think I will never be able to understand this culture, although I try to always keep open of mind ”.What you want to be clear is that yours with Louis Vuitton is not an economic operation."No, I haven't done it for money.Well, of course they pay me, but that is not the motivation.We all need narratives to put order in our actions, but in this case of money it does not validate mine.It is not even interesting to me, ”he alleges, before apostillating:“ I want art everywhere.I understand those who do not like to go to the galleries, because it's like going to zoo.There is something uncomfortable and frustrating in those informative plates that are placed next to a paint or in the cage of a rhinoceros.I want to see the rhino or free giraffe ”.From that desire to release the creation, precisely, the second part of the collaboration project between the artist and the Parisian firm participates: transfer the visual universe of one to the windows of the main flagship stores of the other.Specialist in large -scale works and facilities (see that reconstruction of the typical Swiss alpine chale2007), Fischer has it easy.“We have created different sculptures from the illustrations I made for the scarves.They are very schematic drawings, just line and color, as in a comic, small things with which I communicate.They are the same type of drawings that I sometimes do for my friends, ”he explains.“The fact is that I had never made one of those flat works before three -dimensional, and I had a lot of fun in the process, seeing them evolve.Again, thanks to the professionals of the creative team of Louis Vuitton, which are geniuses ”.To round the play, that same universe will have its digital replica, as content to feed the brand's social networks from January, date of the launch of the capsule collection."The interesting thing has been to build a joint story.For me, Louis Vuitton is a communication platform.And there is so much space in it.Because it's not just about brand identity ".Well, let's go back to the beginning of all this.Let's go back to the logo.

In the hands of the Urs Fischer, the centenary monogram of the house acquires an unknown dimension.Nor is nothing new, that that of Louis Vuitton with art is a long -distance relationship - both that can be traced that its artistic collaborations date back to the early twentieth century - in which the fear of experimentation has never fit and even thecommercial risk.Invited by Marc Jacobs to celebrate the P/V 2001 collection and in graffiti art.Two years later, it would be Takashi Murakami who applied his particular multicolored shock treatment."I have interpreted it from my memory, from the childhood memories that I have of him," reveals the Swiss.“When you are a kid and see a logo like this, you really have no idea what it means.Yes, it is everywhere, but you don't understand it, it's like ‘Bah, I don't care this drawing’.The understanding of the symbol comes later.In this case I was interested in reflecting that previous moment.That is why the stroke is like that of a child, stabbating the paper with his pencils or his waxes.It is a design made with the imagination, not a graphic design solution ”.

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