How Helmut Lang Changed Fashion Forever

"In 2011, Helmut Lang - the Viennese-born, New York-based conceptual practitioner whose work reshaped fashion's visual culture in the 1990s and early 2000s - entrusted the MAK with the largest public archive of his oeuvre. Comprising more than 10,000 artefacts, the archive encapsulates the disruptive, multidisciplinary practice through which Lang operated as a pioneering cultural architect from 1986 until 2005, when he left the fashion circuit to focus on sculpture."

"Curated by Marlies Wirth, Helmut Lang Séance De Travail 1986-2005, reveals a selection of works (including some never published before) drawn from more than 800 artefacts in the Museum of Applied Arts Vienna's holdings. Far from a conventional retrospective, the exhibition operates as a fluid thinking system - a "living archive", in Lang's own words. Reflecting his work across Vienna, Paris and New York, the exhibition unfolds as a nuanced environment shaped by Lang's site-specific approach to stores, runways, advertising campaigns and backstage moments ."

""It was never primarily about product or garments for sale," Wirth says. "It was about identity constructed through space, artwork and cultural references." The opening sections, 'identity' and 'space', establish this egalitarian logic across architecture, fashion presentation and image-making. Central to the exhibition, and to its title, is the term Séance de Travail - "work session" or "work in progress" - which Lang adopted in the late 80s for his runway presentations."

In 2011 Helmut Lang entrusted the MAK with his largest public archive, comprising more than 10,000 artefacts that document his disruptive, multidisciplinary practice from 1986 to 2005. Curated by Marlies Wirth, Helmut Lang Séance De Travail 1986-2005 presents a selection of over 800 objects from the museum's holdings as a fluid 'living archive' emphasizing process and experimentation. The exhibition foregrounds Lang's site-specific approach across Vienna, Paris and New York, connecting stores, runways, advertising campaigns and backstage moments. Opening sections titled 'identity' and 'space' underscore identity constructed through environment, artwork and cultural references. The term Séance de Travail denotes his late-1980s runway format: performative, mixed-gender casts, staged in industrial spaces and choreographed as intersecting, dynamic paths.

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