Hermès is emphasizing on the art of urban wandering with its newest Wanderland exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Running until May 2, the exhibition created by Bruno Gaudichon, is dedicated to flânerie which translates to the act of wandering the city streets and drinking in the details of everyday life.
Quintessentially Parisian, flânerie is about reveling in the unexpected and paying homage to this theme, Hermès has transformed an upper floor of the gallery into a series of whimsical and surreal settings across eleven rooms.
Visitors can step inside the dream world of joy and fantasy put up by set designer Hubert le Gall, with a Paris-inspired landscape as its backdrop. The eleven rooms present a series of installations in various media, created by a diverse selection of artists.
WWD reports that one of the rooms features vintage walking sticks with a built-in bit of chalk for cleaning the collar and a brush for dusting down the suit. While another is filled with graffiti created by the artist known as Cept, and another with floor panels that “talk” when a visitor walks on them.
Also a café dedicated to lost objects features little tables inset with pocket watches or tiny paint boxes that, on closer inspection, feature film screens the size of postage stamps. A pillbox and glass bottle on one table glow with psychedelic colors while the image of a lady dances at the bottom of a coffee cup.
All the whimsical objects on display have been rounded up from the Hermès archive, the museum collection of Emile Hermès at 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris and Hermès’ contemporary collections: a bike, a bag, a pair of boots, a travel writing case, a card deck, a watch from the house’s collection.
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès, opens up about his intention to create an exhibition that would embody “what wandering is about. My hope is that people come to the show, maybe forget reality, and then look at their own city with new eyes. We must never lose our ability to dream, to wander, to go with the flow and let ourselves be surprised.” And since he loves the buzz and beauty of London, Dumas could not resist opening the show there. He added, “Paris would have been the obvious choice, but London is the ideal city for the 21st century flâneur. There is something happening here.”
After London, Wanderland will take a trip to Paris in September, Turin, Italy, in December and China next year.
