ART & ANTIQUITIES SerpentiForm
The fourth edition of Bulgari’s SerpentiForm exhibition has arrived in the ancient Sichuan city of Chengdu, showcasing the enduring influence of the snake in art, jewellery and design. tama lung gets a sneak peek during the lavish grand opening
Few creatures have captured the imagination over the millennia like the snake, the insidious reptile that is at once graceful, mysterious and, often, deadly. It has appeared in some form across almost every culture, religion and civilisation, representing anything from fertility and rebirth to protection and salvation. The snake is also a favourite icon of modern-day artists and craftsmen, in particular those associated with the Italian luxury house Bulgari. It was 1948 when Bulgari first took the legless reptile and reinterpreted it as a timepiece, its body coiling around the wrist and its mouth housing a small dial. Over the decades since, the Serpenti has become a crucial symbol of the brand, reinterpreted in various forms from watches to necklaces to handbags, as well as one of its most enduring inspirations.
It was this sense of symbolism and history that led Bulgari to create a book dedicated to snake-inspired artwork and antiquities, which sparked the idea for a first-of-its-kind exhibition in the brand’s home city of Rome in 2016. “We really wanted to celebrate the serpent not for the jewellery but for what it inspired artistically across the planet in many different cultures and many different times,” explains CEO Jean-Christophe Babin. “Art, to me, is the ultimate expression of human
genius because it’s a mix of creativity and engineering. I was in Egypt last week showing some of my kids the pyramids and behind those pyramids you have a quest for beauty, you have a quest for eternity, but at the same time you have very sophisticated engineering knowledge just as you would find in a Bulgari high jewellery necklace. This is the kind of beauty that appeals to several senses and so we didn’t want to do a jewellery exhibition; we wanted to provide for the first time ever the artistic context of our main jewellery symbol Serpenti through the ages.”
Subsequent SerpentiForm exhibitions have been held in Singapore and Tokyo, but when it came time for this year’s event, the maison shifted its focus to China and the context it could bring to the project. “We realised that this topic of the snake could be extremely meaningful in China because of the cultural relevance of the snake and so we started to expand and deepen our research,” explains Lucia Boscaini, Bulgari’s brand and heritage curator.
And as they searched for a local partner that could source the Chinese artwork and provide a suitable venue, Chengdu Museum emerged as the most logical choice. Not only is it located in one of China’s ancient capitals, a noted centre of art and heritage, but the museum itself shares qualities of the snake, having shed its dated 1980s-era form to reopen as a striking, modern building in 2016.
“Chengdu Museum has a permanent collection that’s really amazing and has a lot of snakes coming from really interesting artworks of the past,” Boscaini says. “We met them several times and of course they knew us as a commercial brand, so it took a while to get to know each other and understand the real potential of the message. We worked together for several months, identifying unique items from both sides, and this is definitely the most sophisticated exhibition we’ve had so far.”
Having sampled some of the city’s artfully presented fare – Chengdu is famous for its teahouse culture and appreciation of leisurely pursuits – and spent an afternoon watching giant pandas sleep, roll over and occasionally saunter in search of bamboo, we arrive at Chengdu Museum to be greeted by an army of security guards and by waiters bearing trays of champagne.
It’s nearly time for the grand-opening ceremony and in true Bulgari form, we’re graced by the appearance of singer/actor (and former boy band member, who still makes young fans scream and swoon) Kris Wu as well as Hollywood icon Uma Thurman. But once all the excitement has died down, attention shifts back to the exhibition and the treasures to be found past the neon-lit SerpentiForm entrance.
First are the Chinese and Italian antiquities, ranging from a representation of the mythical Xuan Wu (an entwined turtle and snake) to a statue of a young Hercules grappling with two snakes and underlining the fact that the snake has carried cultural and religious meaning for
“We wanted to provide the artistic context of our main jewellery symbol through the ages” — Jean-Christophe Babin
thousands of centuries. “It’s really amazing how the craftsmanship is so similar to jewellery,” Boscaini says. “The detail is so sophisticated.”
From weapons and talismans, we move to more contemporary pieces by artists such as Alexander Calder, Niki de Saint Phalle, Heri Dono, Joan Miró, Philip Taaffe and Joana Vasconcelos. The snakes slither their way into Medusa-inspired paintings and more playful pop-art drawings and sculptures. The work of French-American Saint Phalle in particular illustrates how the snake, which typically represents sinister, monstrous elements, can be transformed into something innocent and joyful – a practice that helped the late artist recover from personal tragedy and devastating depression.
But Bulgari didn’t stop at existing works by world-famous and wellestablished artists. Babin and Boscaini also enlisted Chinese artists to create their own depictions of the snake. Sun Hao and Chengdu artist Yang Miang made pieces especially for the exhibition, adding to a number of pieces curated by the consultancy Tianchen Times.
Having travelled through time and space with the serpent in all its many forms, we arrive at the final hall and its theatre and opera costumes, vintage evening dresses and fashion photography. The eyecatching display is meant to illustrate a modern and more personal perspective on the snake and its role as a woman’s means of seduction.
“I think we’re now in a historical moment where we don’t learn anymore by just reading. We have so many different media around us and everything’s moving so fast. So that’s why I tried in this exhibition, like in the others, to introduce an element of emotion,” Boscaini says. “The exhibitions we try to build are very immersive, including the music and the images, because we try to offer something that’s beyond the rational learning that you can experience in a regular exhibition. I think it’s more contemporary because it helps people of all backgrounds, and maybe you don’t remember the year a certain artwork was created but you can enjoy its beauty.”