Launched by Phaidon & Nicola Erni at an intimate private lunch at La Suite Dior Paris with guests of honour Sylvie Fleury, Fabrice Hergott and Peter Knapp during Paris Art Week
Mix & Match: Fashion Photography Meets Contemporary Art surveys almost 400 works from the 1930s to present day. Over 25 years, collector Nicola Erni has amassed over 6,000 works to date in both fields, making it one of the largest collections of this type in private hands. With curiosity, intuition, concept, entrepreneurial spirit, and her own vision she acquired works that speak to her passion for art, fashion, and social change. Nicola Erni’s dedication to fashion photography underscores its importance, as the genre has been previously overlooked, and puts it on an equal footing with other forms of contemporary art.
The book opens with a foreword by Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an introductory essay written by Fabrice Hergott, director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris. Each text traces the evolution of this remarkable collection before moving into twelve thematic sections around dynamic subjects from the history of fashion photography, and the development of street style, to young artists working at the forefront of photography and contemporary art today.
At the heart of the book are a series of spirited pairings bringing together works of contemporary art and fashion photography on double-page spreads that mirror and enhance each other: from a Yinka Shonibare, CBE sculpture paired with the 1950s photography of Jacques Henri Lartigue, or Tim Walker’s surreal, fantastic photographs alongside Pipilotti Rist’s sculpture, these playful juxtapositions exemplify the unique approach of the Nicola Erni Collection.
Housed in a stunning museum complex in Switzerland, the collection displays work by artists ranging from Andy Warhol to Richard Avedon, Jean-Michel Basquiat to Cecil Beaton, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and Vivian Maier. Informally and joyfully presented, as Nicola Erni does in her “extended living room”, it offers an inspiring, trenchant kaleidoscope of first-class contemporary works—paintings, installations, design, and photography—that capture the zeitgeist.
Mix & Match takes the museum’s vibrant décor as its design inspiration—the energetic zig-zag cover design and the book’s palette of colors is a direct reference to the interior of the museum making the book akin to a wander through the galleries themselves.
This most extensive survey on the Nicola Erni Collection has been realised in one beautiful, exquisitely
designed package.
Mix & Match Fashion Photography Meets Contemporary Art Author: Max Hollein, Nicola Erni, Fabrice Hergott and Valentina Frutig Price: £59.95 Binding: Hardback Extent: 328 pp Illustrations: 388 col illus Size: 305 x 238 mm ISBN: 978 1 83866 998 0 BUY HERE
About the Authors
Nicola Erni’s impressive collection comprises fashion photography from the 1930s to the present day, photography of social change in the 1960s and 70s and an astonishing collection of artwork from visionaries such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, and many others. Max Hollein, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Fabrice Hergott, Director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris. Valentina Frutig, Senior Collection Manager at the Nicola Erni Collection, Steinhausen, Switzerland.
