The first paintings I saw by this American Modernist were at Tate Modern. The white flowers are still the ones I remember best. And now Rei Kawakubo offers her own point of view through an intimate dialogue between art and structure in the courtyard of Dover Street Market Paris.
Known for her modernist paintings of flowers and desert landscapes, Georgia O’Keeffe explored the fine line between nature and abstraction. Rei Kawakubo’s work often moves in that same space. Both create form through reduction. Both use structure as emotion.
In the courtyard, the Japanese designer curated and designed this ode to O’Keeffe. Monumental metal pillars transform into a visual conversation. Black and white photographs from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum archives, some taken by O’Keeffe herself, wrap around the columns, layered with reproductions of her most evocative paintings. The result feels architectural and almost spiritual. Just like a fabric hugging the body, steel and image merge into another art dimension. Walking through the courtyard, the round columns create a striking juxtaposition in the middle of the square. From the upper floors, the installation reveals a different rhythm, seen from above as a constellation of forms.
Georgia O’Keeffe in the courtyard
Dover Street Market Paris is housed in a seventeenth-century mansion, the Hôtel de Coulanges, once home to the French author Marquise de Sévigné. The historic building at 35-37 rue des Francs-Bourgeois in the Marais now feels like a modern fashion maze. Everything is finely curated, from all the Comme des Garçons collections to Rick Owens, Phoebe Philo and many more. This concept store is also a mix of design, art and fashion, a perfect combination. And of course, a Rose Bakery.
Dover Street Market Paris
Images taken by author, courtesy of Dover Street Market Paris
Discover: www.doverstreetmarketparis.com
