“Art and fashion are both about desire”

YANA PEEL, CEO OF SERPENTINE GALLERIES, AND KARIN GUSTAFSSON, CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF COS, CHAT COLLABORATION, CREATIVITY AND COCO CHANEL

Sarah Bailey celebrates COS and Serpentine Galleries’ joint venture

Art and fashion have long had a fruitful relationship, from Schiaparelli’s playful collaboration with Salvador Dali (lobster frocks!) to Yves Saint Laurent’s geometric ‘Mondrian’ shifts, to countless other exotic pairings. However, there is something particularly thrilling – and, dare we say it, utopian – about a partnership between a gallery that welcomes

1.5 million visitors a year to its free art programme and a clothing label that prides itself on producing refined and thoughtfully designed fashion at highstreet prices.

For Red’s fifth ‘Art issue’ we sat down with Yana Peel, CEO of Serpentine Galleries, and COS creative director Karin Gustafsson to discuss their respective vision and the collaborative ethos that underpins the brilliant Park Nights programme each summer.

Gustafsson, a modest and quietly spoken Royal Academy alumna, has been with the Swedish fashion brand since its inception 10 years ago; while Peel inter alia a former Goldman Sachs trader, children’s book author and CEO of the debating organisation Intelligence Squared (a one-woman “ideas explosion”, according to her partner in crime at Serpentine Galleries, Hans-ulrich Obrist) succeeded Julia Peyton-jones in the position of CEO this year.

Together, Peel and Obrist commissioned the glorious 2017 Serpentine Pavilion by Burkina Faso architect Francis Kéré that has brought a welcome note of internationalism and inclusiveness to London’s Hyde

Park this summer (rush to see it before it closes on 8th October). And it is overlooking this joyful and uplifting structure that Red magazine caught up with these two redoubtable innovators to discuss mutual inspiration, careers and potent female icons. SARAH BAILEY: Yana, you are a true polymath with such a varied career. Why did you decide to join Serpentine Galleries at this moment? YANA PEEL:

“I’ve been involved with the galleries for 13 years and this is my first as CEO. It’s an incredible time to bring all of my passions – for debate, fashion, music, architecture – into this venue. It has such a history of being a hub for creativity, but also so open to the multi-disciplinary approach. It’s so exciting to have partners in fashion who enable what we do in performance; to have partners in architecture who enable us to be community builders and place makers.” SB: Will you be making any changes to the programme and the approach? YP:

“We say the future is made of fragments from the past and it has been 50 years of legacy since Serpentine was a tea pavilion. Since then, it has become one of the most respected and radical institutions in the world. In this first year, there has been so much questioning about what society we are looking for and we have defined Serpentine’s mission going forward – to inspire the widest audiences with the urgency of art and architecture.” SB: Can we discuss the role of women in the British art scene, where we increasingly see

The Serpentine is a place of DISCOVERY – and there is a sense of discovery in COS collections

female power brokers such as yourself leading our institutions, while the representation of female artists in big shows continues to lag behind. YP:

“I did a debate with Intelligence Squared called ‘Art is a Boys’ Club’, in which Frances Morris and Gregor Muir debated [and concluded] that yes, it is. Ironically, Frances is now running Tate Modern, and it’s wonderful to see Maria Balshaw in her new role at the Tate. At Serpentine, we are always looking at identity. Hans-ulrich Obrist has been wonderful in terms of the programme at Serpentine, not just looking across male/female/black/white, but also across ages. We are a place of discovery and that could mean you discover the octogenarian Rose Wylie here in January, or Norwegian photographer Torbjorn Rowland next season. Our team and our programme reflects that open opportunity across the ages, across the races – London is open and so are we.” KARIN GUSTAFSSON:

“I loved Lynette Yiadomboakye’s show at Serpentine. That’s how I discovered her. Thank you for introducing her. I love her work.” YP:

“Yes, it was amazing. She was the youngest artist with a solo show here at Serpentine.” SB: Do you feel a responsibility towards young women in the art and design worlds? KG:

“I think the world is an open place. You have to grab it and embrace it and take on opportunities when they are there. I would never like to think that there is a difference in opportunities between men and women. I guess that’s the way to think. You have to be determined, work hard, learn from people in your industry, be curious and listen.” SB: How does Serpentine go about engaging a young audience? YP:

“Generally, I think Serpentine is a place that attracts the largest diverse community. With the Park Nights programme, for instance, I just see the desire for congregation. Although we are spending so much time online, I still feel there’s something incredible about the physical and the present.” KG:

“I really appreciated Serpentine as a gallery when I was a student across the road at college. This was always a place to come to, where you could see an exhibition for free, go to the bookshop. I like the idea of it being very democratic and open, a place where you can share inspiration.” SB: And does the gallery still fulfil that function for you in your current role as the creative leader at COS? KG: “As a brand, we have always had a lot of interest in the art world – it’s what makes us think, makes us want to work, makes us want to take on a new challenge and make a new collection. It’s very important to recharge and get inspired. I really like the Pavilion.

It’s become that thing that you want to see every summer. I wouldn’t have had the chance to see a lot of that architecture had it not been for Serpentine. [A prerequisite for annual Pavilion selection is that the architect should never have built a building in the UK before.]

It’s about sharing architecture with the public in a very democratic way.” YP:

“There is also that sense of discovery in COS collections. People in the art and design worlds love COS because it’s a brand that doesn’t wear you. How does it work in terms of design ideas and creating collections?” KG: “We always give ourselves some time – a couple of weeks – when we lock ourselves in and just look at all the inspiration we’ve collected throughout the year and look at the stories and the tendencies, we look at a lot of young artists and designers and talk about material innovation and that’s how we do it. It evolves from prototypes and draping, fitting, then back to the

drawing board, and then to product. And eventually you have that collection.” SB: Karin, who are the women in fashion that you admire?

“Not any specific person. I like it when women choose style before fashion, but if I have to mention an icon, I’d say Coco Chanel. I think she did something amazing for women at the time. The clothes she created then are still modern today.” SB: Yana, why do you think art and fashion are such dynamic bedfellows? “I’ve always been in a place where I think culture and commerce are symbiotic. They’re complementary. My background was in finance and I always refer to Andy Warhol’s quote ‘good business is the best art…’ Fashion and art are both about desire, we want to appeal to people’s primal instincts and reinterpretations. What does it mean to see a new shape, a new angle, a new construction? What does it mean to come to the Pavilion and discover a new architect from Burkina Faso who might never have crossed your path?” SB: I often think of fashion designers as artists of modernity. In 2017, the world is in a scary place. How can art and design be agents for positive societal change? KG: “The faster the pace [of the world], the slower you have to allow yourself to be. Art for me is that

moment, when you get drawn into something that wasn’t on your busy agenda.

“Can good design make things better? For sure. I think all of us need to think more about the future… If you really think about how people purchase, if customers think about what they really need, how long they are going to have it… That’s why fashion matters, because we have an opportunity to really make a difference.” YP:

“At Serpentine, our mission is to create a safe space for unsafe ideas, to create a space for people to come and open up the debate and discussion about the types of solutions that creative minds need to be addressing about the future of our society. I think the present is a place to allow that experimentation to happen. Our job is to create an open society for those ideas to thrive.”