M+'s new special exhibition "Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China" will open to the public from this Saturday, 29 July to 30 September. This exhibition is the first-ever museum exhibition in the world dedicated to the legend in the spheres of Chinese art, film, music, and fashion from the 1980s to the 2000s, Song Huai-Kuei (1937–2006).
The exhibition features more than 320 objects including rare archival materials, garments from world-renowned fashion designers, movie costumes and footage, artworks, and large-scale tapestry installations to narrate Song's fascinating biography and her underestimated influence on transforming China into a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse society today.
Song Huai-Kuei—widely known during her lifetime as Madame Song—is one of the most important figures in China's elite cultural circle in the 1980s and 1990s. Her attribute to China's contemporary cultural development makes the audience can appreciate the significant transformation of China's visual culture after the country's reform and opening up to the world. Together with her husband, Bulgarian fibre artist Maryn Varbanov, Song built the bridges between the Eastern and Western worlds.
The exhibition is organised thematically and divided into five sections. The curator of the exhibition, Dr. Pi Li, said the exhibition sequence is simple. It is opening with 'Who is Madame Song?' and uses the following four sections: 'Artist', 'Entrepreneur', 'Fashionista' and 'Cultural Ambassador' to answer the question. The exhibition also displays the clothes designed by fashion designers from Song's circle such as Yves Saint Laurent and Gianfranco Ferré.
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