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Sophie Usunier
Les Empaillés
Curators: Rossella Moratto and Marco Tagliafierro
Flagship store Frankie Morello C.so Matteotti 3, Milano.
June 22 - July 4, 2009
Inauguration: June 22, 2009, 6:30 pm
Venue: Frankie Morello Flagship Store, C.so Matteotti 3, Milan
Times: from 10 am to 7 pm – Admission free Info: +39 02 54 05391
On Monday June 22 Frankie Morello will present a site-specific project by the French artist Sophie Usunier, entitled Les Empaillés, in the spaces of the brand’s first flagship store, recently opened in Milan.
The exhibition, organized by Rossella Moratto and Marco Tagliafierro, is the first event in a more far-reaching program called Knot – Frankie Morello Meets Art, stemming from the great passion for contemporary art nursed by the designers Maurizio Modica and Pierfrancesco Gigliotti, the brand’s moving spirits, who are already collectors and aspire to become patrons.
Mixture, variety and interaction characterize the research and style of Frankie Morello and are at the root of Knot, whose aim is to create an open dialogue with art and its expressions.
Les Empaillés (Stuffed) is a project that was launched in 2003. It consists of a series of “sculpture-installations” made out of cast-off clothes which the artist collects from the inhabitants of the place where the work is to be exhibited. In the case of Knot #1, Usunier has asked Frankie Morello to let her use vintage garments that cover ten years of the brand’s history, giving them a new significance by altering their original shapes, deforming them, inflating them and stuffing them with straw after having sewn them together. Making use of a wide range of techniques and languages, the artist reworks the mechanisms that govern our perception of the world, offering us fresh and unconventional points of view.
“My reflection,” explains the artist “is of an anthropological character. Les Empaillés should not be seen merely as sculptures, but also as objects to be lived, to be brought to life”.
This is how Frankie Morello comments on Sophie Usunier’s work: “We will have the possibility of discovering an interesting interpretation of our clothes, taken out of their context and adapted to a new purpose. We find recycling, reutilization and regenerated spaces fascinating.”
Sophie Usunier was born in France in 1971. She lives and works in Milan and Nancy. After studying at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, she has held exhibitions in France, Germany and Italy, at such institutional and private venues as: the PAV in Turin; the FRAC Lorraine in Metz; the Fondazione SoutHeritage in Matera; Lago with the Fondazione March in Padua; the Museo Laboratorio in Città Sant’Angelo; the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa; the Galleria Placentia Arte in Piacenza; NeonProjectBox in Milan; the Galleria Note Artecontemporanea in Arezzo.
The Frankie Morello Fashion House was born in 1999 out of the encounter between Maurizio Modica and Pierfrancesco Gigliotti.
The brand, owned by the two designers, has in recent years made important license agreements covering clothing, underwear and beachwear (Frankie Morello Sexy Wear), shoes, bags, sunglasses and children’s footwear (Frankie Morello Toys).
In 2008 it opened its first headquarters in Milan, a space of 850 sq m that houses the style office and press office.
In February 2009 it opened its first flagship store in Milan, at Corso Matteotti, 3a. Present in the best showcases of the fashion circuit and published in the world’s most prestigious periodicals, the brand is a favorite with many celebrities.
