Instead, a sinister joker-face hologram–like in “The Wizard of Oz’’–urges visitors to enter a large, dark, round room to see “the pretentious fatman.” Inside, 11 video screens run 45-minute-long films, each recounting a different chapter of the 54-year-old French designer’s life: the founding of his 30-year-old company, the origins of his most popular works, his partnership with hip American hotelier Ian Schrager, his children, his restaurants. Below each screen, a hologram of Starck’s burly bearded face narrates the film in eloquent rapid-fire French. (There are English subtitles.) Like Starck’s work, this circus-like show is archly ironic, mocking society’s bourgeois expectations in an amusing, self-deprecating way.
Take the sole object on display: a giant kidney-shaped bronze sculpture titled “Shadow.’’ “That,’’ Starck deadpans, “is my subconscious.’’ Off to the side, a spotlight shines on a blue blazer on the floor. “The light shows absence,’’ he explains, “and the blazer represents our need to fill absence with something, anything.’’ Starck says that the aim of the exhibit–the first he’s ever permitted–is “to show that creation is a result of life and accessible to everyone.’’ But will everyone get the joke?
