DURO OLOWU: SEEING CHICAGO
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago – MCA, Chicago
February 29–September 27, 2020

Nigerian-born British designer Duro Olowu is internationally recognized for his womenswear label launched in 2004. Characterized by unique fabrics, evocative patterns, and impeccable construction, the London-based designer’s garments are informed by his international background and curator’s eye. Olowu’s multinational and multicultural viewpoint has translated into wildly popular platforms and projects from his dynamic Instagram account to his revelatory curatorial projects in London and New York.

31: Women
Daimler Contemporary, Berlin
February 29, 2020–February 7, 2021

Daimler Contemporary Berlin remains closed until July 1, 2020

31: Women, the Daimler Art Collection’s new Berlin show, references two groundbreaking presentations held at Peggy Guggenheim’s New York gallery Art of This Century, the Exhibition by 31 Women, 1943, and The Women, 1945. Initiator and co-curator was Guggenheim’s friend and advisor, the artist Marcel Duchamp. These were the first exhibitions in the United States that focused, to this extent, exclusively on women artists.

Andrea Zittel
Parallel Planar Panels
November 3, 2015–January 16, 2016
Berlin

Over the last 25 years I have developed a practice in which spaces, objects, and acts of living all intertwine within a single ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today. 'How to live?' and 'what gives life meaning?' are core issues in both my personal life and my artistic practice. Answering these questions has often entailed the examination of social norms, values, hierarchies and categories, which are all highly articulated human constructions that are oddly meaningful and somewhat arbitrary at the same time.

Andrea Zittel
Pattern of Habit
June 8–September 10, 2011
Berlin

’For the last twenty years my work in one way or another has examined how psychological structures, thought systems and beliefs are manifested as physical objects in the world that we create around ourselves. Most recently this research has focused on the patterns and systems that are bound to habits, schedules and rules. For instance, I live in the desert where there all of my day to day necessities are ordered on-line, and delivered to my doorstep – a never ending stream of products, each carefully packed in its own cardboard box. After I unpack it’s contents I eye the box thinking that it is a shame to throw out such a perfect vehicle – especially if it has special proportions or clearly crisp edges and corners. Soon I found myself stacking the boxes up along an empty wall, eventually devising a way to cement this irregular structure together into an integrated unit that reflects a pattern of my own life through consumption.’ Andrea Zittel, May 2011

Andrea Zittel
Smockshop London
September 19–October 3, 2009
London

The Smockshop is a continuation of Andrea Zittel’s long-standing aesthetic investigation into the daily routines and functional experiences of everyday life. Founded in Los Angeles in 2007, this artistic and economic ‘pop up’ experiment appeared in galleries, stores, and non-profit venues across North American before making its European debut at Sprüth Magers Berlin in February of 2009. A profit-making enterprise with social awareness, the Smockshop generates income for non-commercial artists who are not yet self-sustaining.

Andrea Zittel
Smockshop Berlin
February 18–April 18, 2009
Berlin

This is the first time the Smockshop (www.smockshop.org) has set up its stall outside North America, and it is also scheduled to be the last time it opens for business at all, making this a unique opportunity to experience Zittel’s artistic and economic experiment. Two artisans will work in the gallery for the first four days of the exhibition making the smocks that are available for purchase right after their production. The works will be then on view in the gallery throughout the whole exhibition period. The double wrap-around garments designed by Zittel collectively represent an aesthetically diverse yet functionally uniform body of work. Extending Zittel’s longstanding interest in the form and function of everyday life, the smocks develop a modernist tradition of clothing design and manufacture, extending back to the Russian avant-garde, which emphasises utility and economy, and inclines towards an alternative experience of clothing to the prevailing discourse of fashion.

Andrea Zittel
A-Z Uniform Series 1991 – 2002
May 15–June 28, 2003
Munich

Most of us to own a favorite garment that makes us look and feel good, but social etiquette dictates that we wear a different change of clothes every day. Sometimes this multitude of options can actually feel more restrictive that a self-imposed constant. Because I was tired of the tyranny of constant variety, I began a six-month uniform project. Starting in 1991 I would design and made one perfect dress for each season, and would then to wear that dress every day for six months. Although utilitarian in principle, I often found that there was often a strong element of fantasy or emotional need invested in each season's design. The experiment as a whole worked quite well, especially since dreaming up the next season's design helped relieve any monotony that might have occurred from wearing the same dress every day.