JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC - L’IMAGINATION AU POUVOIR

Les Abattoirs is devoting an exceptional exhibition to Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (b. 1949), visionary fashion designer and protean artist. Featuring almost 300 works, including clothes, design objects, drawings and photographs, "L'Imagination au pouvoir" is an invitation to discover the many facets of an artist whose inventiveness knows no bounds.

An unclassifiable creator, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has been bringing together fashion, art, music, history, the sacred, pop culture and childhood since the late 1960s. His work, undisciplined and free, transforms clothing into a work of art, a suit of armour and an ornament, escaping any fixed definition.

The exhibition at Les Abattoirs takes visitors on an immersive journey through his abundant universe, where hybridisation, collage, misappropriation and upcycling intersect with the great movements of art history, from Arte Povera to Nouveau Réalisme. Clothes, drawings, objects, photographs and installations specially created for the occasion reveal a total art form that is at once poetic, critical and joyful.

A tireless collaborator, Castelbajac has worked with Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, Lady Gaga, Max Mara, Ligne Roset and on liturgical commissions. His encounters, reinvented in the exhibition, bear witness to the vitality of a designer who has never ceased to proclaim the power of the imagination.