Dear ______________ ,
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the death of Marcel Proust, PROVENCE presents: The PROVENCE Proust Questionnaire.
Loosely adapted from the original Proust Questionnaire—a set of questions answered by Proust in 1885, as part of a popular parlor game—these 25 questions are designed to reveal the true nature of the more than 50 interviewees who took part. What’s Veit Laurent Kurz’s favorite coffee shop? What’s Kerren Cytter’s biggest fear? Which artists have the same favorite brand of underwear, and who admires who? It’s all here, and you need to know none of it, but it’s nice to know some of it. We also asked each interviewee to pro- vide a photograph of their current studio, which we’ve included as a complimentary booklet with the title, STUDIO VISIT.
The PROVENCE Proust Questionnaire is accompanied by a photographic report by photographer Einar Mølmann Fuglem, who visited the International Library of Fashion Research. Founded in 2020 by Elise By Olsen, the library exists with the ambition of be- coming the world’s most comprehensive repository of specialized fashion research and contemporary fashion publications. Months before we began work on this issue, Einar had visited the library to shoot repros of each piece of printed matter in their archive. We asked him to revisit, this time on assignment for PROVENCE, to photograph at the archive once more but from an artist’s point of view. This new suite of photographs presents a fragmented selec- tion of fashion ephemera, including: invitation cards, film slides, clothing tags and rare publications. It's a deep dive into the fetishes of printed matter.
Lastly, we’ve included two new freshly produced posters. The first one is by Specchi Magici—an artist-run platform based in Berlin and Milan, known for their mirror-like objects that are neither de- sign nor art. Their first mirror was released this past August and created by founder Riccardo Paratore.
The second poster features a new artwork by Raphaela Vogel commissioned by PROVENCE. Staged by our fashion director Nina Hollensteiner, and shot by still life photographer Denis Koval, Raphaela Vogel’s sculpture resembles a relic from somewhere between an antique jewelry auction catalog and a natural history museum.
Sincerely,
PROVENCE
PROVENCE. LA VIE D’ARTISTE.
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21.5 × 17 cm, Softover, 2022, 978-3-9824509-1-9 ISSN: 2624-7682