Whitewall Presents: “The Art of Caviar” Vernissage Opening with La Prairie

La Prairie hosted a vernissage event for “The Art of Caviar” on Tuesday, September 6 in New York. The exhibition, open to the public Wednesday, September 7 at 3 West 57^th Street in Manhattan, was part of the Swiss luxury skincare brand’s 30^th anniversary celebration of its Skin Caviar collection. The show brings together the commissioned work of four contemporary artists including Paul Coudamy, Bonjour Lab, Cinq Fruits, and TremensS.

At last week’s opening event, attendees like Judith Light, Dita Von Teese, Andy Cohen, Zac Posen, Gillian Sagansky, Chriselle Lim, Bryanboy, Camila Coutinho, Alexandra Pereira, Carlos Quirarte, and Anna Speckhart, enjoyed champagne, caviar pairings, and passed caviar-covered hors d’oeuvres.

Entering the exhibition space (decked-out in La Prairie-blue carpet, of course), visitors first took in Coudamy’s Living Cells sculpture gleaming in white in the center of the room. The tower of geometric forms is made of lacquered steel, its structure citing the Weaire-Phelan mathematical formula. The work premiered at Art Basel this past June in La Prairie’s VIP booth, but covered in clusters of black moveable magnetic marbles—uncannily reminiscent of caviar—it is continually shifting in shape.

Coudamy also created the interactive work, Solid Frequencies, which references the Kundt Tube, a scientific sound wave display device. A long clear cylinder filled with white beads protrudes from a black shiny boulder with a small round opening. Reaching inside the hole, participants wiggle their fingers, and their movement is translated into a wave of white beads in the tube. With the work, Coudamy plays with elements of touch, movement, mystery, science, and intimacy.

Cinq Fruits, a studio based in Paris, explored the theme of timeless beauty through a series of photographs. Their five images feature Skin Caviar Luxe Cream and Luxe Cream Sheer, though not completely obvious to the eye: there’s an abstract orb of blue bubbles, a black circle with a halo of lightning like tentacles, a cluster of colorful planets, the natural looking veins of a leaf or root, and an orange sphere surrounded by undulating waves.

In the back of the exhibition was Bonjour LAB’s interactive Moving Pixel. The digital piece tracks the gestures of viewers, projecting 3D-like silhouettes rendered in golden pixels that oscillate between real-time mimicry and frozen moments in time. The collective was interested in evoking La Prairie’s gravity-defying Skin Caviar Liquid Lift.

Not to be missed was TremensS immersive installation downstairs in what looks to be a massive vault. Visitors first heard the work, before seeing a laser shooting past the massive safe door onto a suspended screen. Four projectors work in tandem with the laser to form moving shapes on screen, sometimes contained, other times free-flowing. The piece is a result of a software algorithm and marks the artist’s first experimentation with lasers. The installation’s technological focus alludes to La Prairie’s own advancements in developing Caviar Water for its Skin Caviar Essence-in-Lotion.

The entire Skin Caviar collection is emblematic of La Prairie’s pioneering position in the skincare industry. It is the first line of beauty products ever to be infused with the potency of caviar. “The Art of Caviar” is another first, connecting La Prairie to the world of art. In doing so, the brand shares with artists a spirit and fearlessness in breaking the rules and pushing the boundaries of possibility in material, imagination, and beauty.

 

“The Art of Caviar” first premiered in Paris. This fall, the show travels to Hong Kong (September 29-October 2 at the International Finance Centre) and Shanghai (November 9-12 at the West Bund Art and Design).