CHANEL MOBILE ART PAVILION

Award-winning actress, Sarah Jessica Parker

It sort of felt very Oscars night meets 2001 A Space Odyssey at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park Tuesday night at the private view of Chanel Mobile Art. While a bank of paparazzi stood single file under elm tress popping flashbulbs, a stream of mostly women dressed to the nines, many dripping in Chanel ascended a low-rise staircase, stalked a red-carpeted runway to the portal of the Chanel Art Mobile pavilion, a smooth-as-silk white fiberglass vehicle that might have likely landed from Mars. Designed by the Pritzker winning architect, Zaha Hadid, it’s a curvaceous structure made of hundreds of molded fiberglass panels mounted on a steel skeletal frame.

Making a world tour, Chanel Mobile Art originated in Hong Kong in February, traveled during summer to Tokyo and in late July was dismantled again, packed and shipped to New York where it unveiled to the public on October 20th and remains on view through November 9th. It’s been described as a nautilus-like form but I see it more like a highly stylized PRE-FAB spaceship. Hadid is always ahead of the game and perhaps she’s really onto something since space travel is becoming the new adventure choice of the billionaire set.

Chanel Mobile Art is a traveling contemporary/temporary vehicle designed to display commissioned artworks by leading artists from around the world inspired by a quilted leather chain-strap handbag, called the 2.55 for the month and year it was designed by Coco Chanel. The pavilion has been financed by the French luxury goods brand. http://www.chanel-mobileart.com