The exhibition, “Aura: Valentino Garavani – Ewa Juszkiewicz”, opened on Sunday, 18 October, and runs until 21 February 2027 at PM23, an exhibition space on Piazza Mignanelli near Rome’s Spanish Steps.
The works are arranged to create a visual dialogue between their forms, colours and approaches to feminine beauty.
Valentino’s historic dresses, drawn from the fashion house’s archive, feature distinctive shapes, sculptural motifs, intricate embroidery and elaborate ornamentation. Juszkiewicz’s paintings reinterpret classical portraits of women, often concealing their faces with fabrics, leaves, flowers, hair or elaborate compositions.
One pairing brings Juszkiewicz’s painting Monstera, depicting a woman whose face is hidden by large leaves, together with a multicoloured, mosaic-like dress from the 1990–91 season.
Her Study of a Lady in White is displayed alongside three light-coloured dresses in white, ecru and gold.
The exhibition also juxtaposes Valentino’s iconic red dresses with paintings of women whose faces are covered by fabric in the same colour.
Juszkiewicz created a new painting specifically for the exhibition, Portrait in Valentino Red, which is being shown publicly for the first time. It was inspired by a dress from Valentino’s autumn/winter 2007–08 haute couture collection displayed nearby.
Juszkiewicz told Italian media that the dress’s sculptural form and visual strength immediately sparked her imagination. She said she was particularly fascinated by Valentino’s vision of femininity, which balances delicacy with strength and places women’s confident presence at its centre.
According to the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation, the works invite reflection on metamorphosis as a change of perspective capable of renewing the idea of beauty.
Juszkiewicz, who comes from Gdańsk, holds a master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and completed doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Picasso Museum in Málaga and the National Museum in Beijing.
She presented her paintings in Rome in 2017. In 2024, her solo exhibition in Venice was included in the official programme of events accompanying the 60th International Art Biennale.
(sp)
Source: PAP