In SKP, Beijing’s top luxury department store, Valentino is presenting “Resignify Part II,” the second chapter of the re-signification of Maison Valentino’s codes. Curated by Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli, the exhibition is a cruise to show us Haute Couture, the Atelier, the Stud, the VLogo Signature, and Valentino Beauty, the brand’s new beauty line. 

In Piccioli’s words, “resignify” is to look at what you knew with a new lens. To achieve that, the exhibition juxtaposes Valentino’s signs with the artwork of 18 artists, including Cao Fei, Xu Zhen, Gioele Amaro, Robert Müller, Liu Shiyuan, Cheng Ran, Shen Xin, Xu Wenkai, Amkk, Jonas Mekas, Yeesookyung, Nick Knight, Jacopo Benassi, Pajama, Robert Del Naja, Wu Rui and Alessandro Teoldi. Through multiple pathways and languages, the personal and subjective nature of art makes each different from each other, inspiring new interpretations and ruminations of the city, the fashion, and ourselves.

For example, in Cao Fei’s documentaries, the artist questions two themes that are fundamental to the development of this experience: the role of clothing and the metropolis. In Cosplayers of 2004, the artist introduces us to a world that is as real as it is slow and silent, a world as if waiting for something, with characters in garments that are somewhere between clothing and disguise. Clothing, which here is understood in its most imaginative form, is removed from the narrative world of reference and populates a domestic and ordinary everyday life, producing a dissonance that is both fascinating and alienating.

Combining with the selected dresses from the Maison’s archive and the contemporary Haute Couture collections, including Valentino Of Grace and Light, Valentino Code Temporal, Valentino Act Collection, the exhibition effortlessly creates an intimate and immersive experience to review the house’s DNA while reflecting on identities and our relationship between clothes and work.

The new chapter wants you to know: after all, the relationship is not unequivocal and analytical, but is sensibly, simply perceptible and legible, or rather intuitive. Connections are visible but unstable because they exist in a liquid structure.