“When you think about American Minimalism, you have to think about Walter De Maria,” says curator Antwaun Sargent, “because of the ways in which he shaped American art through thinking about the essential qualities of material.” Many would argue that, when thinking about American Minimalism, there’s another name that comes to mind in equal measure: Calvin Klein, master of simple, striking forms.
Today, Sargent and Calvin Klein Creative Director Veronica Leoni put the two in conversation at the house’s Spring/Summer 2027 runway, staged at New York’s Terminal Warehouse. Along with Leoni’s new rotation of designs, the vast industrial venue played host to a series of historical works by De Maria—including a number of his stark “Polygon” and “Meter Row” pieces, as well as Truth/Beauty, a series of sculptures partially realized before the artist’s death in 2013.
For Sargent, the connection between the two masters of craft is seen most clearly in their reverence for material—be it stainless steel or cotton—and their uncanny ability to strike a viewer cold with the most pared back of flourishes. He elaborated on their overlapping places in the canon of Minimalism in a pre-show walkthrough of the works he had selected to accompany Leoni’s models down the runway, exclusively for CULTURED.
Let’s start with how you became involved in this project.
Veronica is a designer who is deeply connected to art and artists. She was thinking about this particular show and the theme of American minimalism. Her and her team came to me thinking about Calvin Klein and the man’s engagement with Minimalism, which is an aesthetic in terms of fashion, but also obviously a movement in terms of art. I can’t really speak for her, but Veronica is drawn to the way in which De Maria speaks about Minimalism and how it permeates through his work. If I could venture a guess, the things that resonated with her are the values central to De Maria’s art—precision and repetition and form. You can very easily draw a line between that and the way in which Veronica is re-envisioning Calvin Klein by using the DNA of that minimal approach that has defined the brand.
So you have three different installations from De Maria that speak to his ideas, the ways in which he’s thinking about something like, let’s say, precision?
“Truth” and “beauty,” there’s a dichotomy of those two words playing out in those works. In the “Polygons,” there’s a really interesting tension. But there’s also, in that tension, a really incredible sense of precision. In the rods [composing the “Meter Rows”], obviously, those works are about repetition. Those works are about a real paradox that maintains this intense physical health. Those things are heavy, but they appear really delicate and light because of the way that De Maria works through a fabrication process that was precise in its geometry. And then also in the nature of the stainless steel, a lot of this is about the essence of things. When you think about truth and beauty, what else is there? Especially in relationship to art-making and fashion. There is a real, beautiful dialogue that will be seen [at the show] between not only the models, Veronica’s designs, but also the audience. De Maria was equally concerned with how the viewers experienced his artwork. I always think installations are only complete with a viewer. It’s about taking space, but it’s also about the encounter.
That’s interesting. I’m thinking of what you’re saying as I look at these works, and I’m thinking too about each of these being a different interpretation of a certain purity or timelessness, but also self-perpetuation. Those are pleasant, stimulating questions in the context of art. They become more threatening sometimes or more challenging in the context of fashion when it comes to the never-ending cycle of fashion calendars.
Yeah, that’s sort of shared DNA with Calvin Klein. For me, it only becomes threatening when the context doesn’t make any sense. Here, you have one of the great masters of Minimalism, right? Respectively, Calvin Klein is a master of Minimalism when it comes to clothes, and obviously Walter De Maria is the foundational artist in that arena. I personally love this [exhibition] because often you don’t get to see these things in conversation with each other. And what I really love about it is the ways in which Minimalism has evolved. Veronica is by definition creating a dialogue between a past and a present. Ideas of Minimalism have—from the 1960s, [when] Walter De Maria was starting to work, through to his death in 2013—evolved and changed. You see that through the breadth and depth of his career, but you also see that through the breadth and depth of the way that the brand has evolved. What was so exciting to me about this particular project is the two ways that you can view Minimalism, and it’s happening in real time. I like that tension. It allows for both the artist’s and the fashion designer’s work to breathe in a new way.
And I can imagine two layers of interaction. The models will interact. Then, of course, the spectatorship is on our part as an additional layer.
The runway sort of goes around the artwork. The work is, in a lot of ways, given pride of place. You cannot see the new fashion without seeing the art.
How much did the collection influence your approach to curating these works?
It really was just being in dialogue with Veronica, thinking about the brand history, thinking about which artists have had a connection, whether that’s Calvin Klein himself collecting [or otherwise]. There was a great respect from Veronica. She was like, “Let’s see what you got.” Even with the spacing of the work in the show and all of that, working with her teams to get that right and be respectful of the art but also equally be respectful of what she’s doing. I don’t know many designers that would see the space like that.
It’s not a set dressing.
Exactly, it’s not an accessory. I approach it from an exhibition point standpoint. But also, if you think about the way that other De Maria works are installed, whether it’s out west or the several installations in SoHo, we achieve a level of installation that is in line with the way that De Maria has installed these works. You sort of have three icons of New York coming together in the show. You have the terminal, De Maria, and Calvin Klein.
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