Helmut Lang still has an affinity for material, despite leaving fashion for art over a decade ago. For his current exhibition, 'Burry', on view at Dallas Contemporary until 21 August, the artist discovered a pile of sheepskin that he had lying around after purchasing it on a Manhattan sidewalk, from an organic farm in upstate New York. His curiosity started to draw him back to it: 'The material forced itself to be somehow used and I started to experiment with different ideas, not worrying about the outcome,' Lang explains via email.
Lang stretched the various sizes of the material out on to wooden surfaces, stapling them to the formations, 'to give it a movement it would not have had naturally'. He then coated the pieces with a layer of tar to add a coarse texture to each. The pieces took on lives of their own, becoming, what Peter Doroshenko – exhibition curator and Dallas Contemporary director – referred to as a 'second skin'.
'I think that was always something he dealt with on a one to one when he was in the fashion industry – creating second skin,' explains Doroshenko. 'This second skin we can’t wear.'
After making the pieces, Lang left most with just the tar coating, covering the rest in either gold leaf, silver leaf or a glossy white paint, that resulted in a primordial display of various shapes. Some of the works lean against the walls of the gallery, while others dangle from the ceiling. Others are scattered about on the floor; two black sculptures surrounded by a rectangular frame appear as black pools.
'For the planes, I wanted to achieve a strong, nearly archaic surface, presented as a leaning sculpture on the intersection of painting and sculpture,' the artist explains. 'They became, on one point, a take on mythology and related implications, and evoked often spiritual feelings when I showed them in my studio. That was not my original intention, but that naturally became what the sculptures and the exhibition are radiating.'
Yards of sheepskin are coated with a layer of tar to add a coarse texture. Each piece takes on a life of its own, developing a ’second skin’
After making the pieces, Lang left most with just the tar coating, covering the rest in either gold leaf, silver leaf or a glossy white paint
Some of the works lean against the walls of the gallery, while others dangle from the ceiling
Others are scattered about on the floor
INFORMATION
’Helmut Lang: Burry’ is on view at Dallas Contemporary until 21 August. For more information, visit the Dallas Contemporary website
Photography courtesy the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York
ADDRESS
Dallas Contemporary
161 Glass Street
Dallas
Texas 75207
-
Inside the Centre Pompidou's last hoorahAfter shutting its doors for five years of renovations, French record label Because Music saw the empty site as the perfect space for its 20th anniversary celebrations
-
Faux fur and shearling dominated the A/W 2025 runways – these ten pieces capture the material’s ‘raw glamour’Embrace the season’s twisted glamour with these arresting pieces in imitation fur and shearling, from Simone Rocha’s faux fur-covered Mary Janes to colourful-hued shearlings from Gucci, Alaïa and Jacquemus
-
The Grand Egyptian Museum – a monumental tribute to one of humanity’s most captivating civilisations – is now completeDesigned by Heneghan Peng Architects, the museum stands as an architectural link between past and present on the timeless sands of Giza
-
Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are a love letter to Prospect ParkIn a new book, ‘Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025’, Jamel Shabazz discovers a warmer side of human nature
-
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles launches the seventh iteration of its highly anticipated artist biennialOne of the gallery's flagship exhibitions, Made in LA showcases the breadth and depth of the city's contemporary art scene
-
Thomas Prior’s photography captures the uncanny fragility of American lifeA new book unites two decades of the photographer’s piercing, uneasy work
-
Central Park’s revitalised Delacorte Theater gears up for a new futureEnnead Architects helmed an ambitious renovation process that has given the New York City cultural landmark a vibrant and more accessible future
-
Stephen Prina borrows from pop, classical and modern music: now MoMA pays tribute to his performance work‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’ recalls the artist, musician, and composer’s performances, and is presented throughout MoMA. Prina tells us more
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Richard Prince recontextualises archival advertisements in TexasThe artist unites his ‘Posters’ – based on ads for everything from cat pictures to nudes – at Hetzler, Marfa
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
