Helmut Lang (born 10 March 1956) is an Austrian artist and former fashion designer and mentor who lives and works in New York and on Long Island.

Career

In 1986, Lang showed his first Helmut Lang runway collection in Paris at

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

. His first Helmut men's collection debuted in 1987 and a decade later he moved his label from Vienna to New York. Lang used unconventional materials such as rubber, feathers and metallic fabrics and redefined the silhouette of the

1990s File:1990s decade montage.png, From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War ...

and early 2000s. He broke away from the runway show-as-spectacle in the height of the 1980s opulence and was the first to stream his collection online in 1998. Lang's brand was known for its utilitarian, minimalist aesthetic, as well as for his prestige range of denim. In 1999, Lang sold a 51% stake in his company to the

Prada Group Prada S.p.A. (, ; ) is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding ...

, with Prada running distribution and manufacturing and Lang controlling design and advertising. Afterwards, Prada developed a line of Helmut Lang accessories such as shoes, belts and bags, and opened Helmut Lang stores in Hong Kong and Singapore. Sales under the Prada Group fell from $100 million in 1999 to $37 million in 2003. The brand's decision to cancel the licensing for an external company to manufacture and market its profitable range of Helmut Lang Jeans was cited as one of the reasons for its loss in revenue. In 2005 he left his label and retired from fashion. He has since been based in New York City and on Long Island as a practicing artist. In 2006, Prada sold the Helmut Lang brand to Link Theory Holdings. Lang has collaborated with artists

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...

and

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

. His recent works explore abstract sculptural forms and physical arrangements beyond the limitations of the human body. Lang had his first solo art exhibition ALLES GLEICH SCHWER at the

Kestnergesellschaft Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in Hanover, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. Its founders included the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948). The association blossomed under the management of and , ...

in Hannover in 2008 and has since presented solo exhibitions internationally. Lang has published excerpts from his ongoing art projects ''Long Island Diaries'

and ''The Selective Memory Series'

in a number of publications, such as

BUTT Magazine ''BUTT'' is a biannual magazine that features photography and interviews about alternative gay and queer culture and sexuality. Historically, the magazine has been marketed as for gay men. ''BUTT'' was founded in 2001 by Gert Jonkers and Jop van B ...

br>
Fannzine 13

Visionaire The VisionAire VA-10 Vantage is a prototype single-engined light business-jet (or "very light jet") designed and developed by the American company VisionAire Jets Corporation. Originally planned for production in the late 1990s, the original Visio ...

and most recently The Travel Almana

Work

This timeline outlines Helmut Lang's work in fashion and art up until 2021. Solo Exhibitions Group Exhibitions

Helmut Lang fashion 1977–2005

This timeline outlines the developments in Lang's fashion as well significant attributes of key collections. Helmut Lang, MAKE IT HARD, 2011, Resin, pigment and mixed media

Helmut Lang, MAKE IT HARD, 2011, Resin, pigment and mixed media

Collections

Helmut Lang's works are part of the following collections: *Costume Institute at

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York *

Deste Foundation Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art is an arts foundation in Nea Ionia, a northern suburb of Athens, Greece. Housing the art collection of Greek businessman Dakis Joannou, it organizes exhibitions with the collection and commissions new w ...

for Contemporary Art, Athens *

Fashion Museum, Bath The Fashion Museum (known before 2007 as the Museum of Costume) is housed in the Assembly Rooms in Bath, Somerset, England. The collection was started by Doris Langley Moore, who gave her collection of costumes to the city of Bath in 1963. The ...

, United Kingdom *

Groninger Museum The Groninger Museum () is an art museum in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The museum exhibits modern and contemporary art of local, national, and international artists. The museum opened in 1874. The current post-modernist building co ...

, Groninger, The Netherlands *

LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 196 ...

, Los Angeles *MAK, Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austri

*

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

*MOMU, Antwerp, Belgiu

*

Musée de la Mode et du Textile The Musée de la mode et du textile (Museum of Fashion and Textiles) was a museum located in the Louvre at, 107, rue de Rivoli, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It is now a department of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Works fr ...

, Paris *

Musée Galliera The Palais Galliera, also formally known as the Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris (City of Paris Fashion Museum), and formerly known as Musée Galliera, is a museum of fashion and fashion history located at 10, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, ...

, Paris *Museo de la Moda, Santiago, Chil

*

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

, Phoenix, USA *SONS, Kruishoutem, Belgiu

*The Arts Center, Melbourne, Australi

*The Museum at The

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

, New York *The

National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, Oslo, Norway

Architecture projects

Original Helmut Lang stores (until 2005) All of the original Helmut Lang stores have been closed. The last one to close was the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

location in late 2005. Most of the art-inspired stores had been designed by Lang in collaboration with

Gluckman Mayner Architects Gluckman Tang Architects, (previously Gluckman Mayner Architects), is a New York City based architecture firm providing services in architecture, planning, and interior design. Established by Richard Gluckman in 1977, the firm is known for min ...

of New York. 1995 *Helmut Lang

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße The Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße is a street in the old town of Munich. It runs from Salvatorplatz in a southwesterly direction to Promenadeplatz. History The street is in the '' Kreuzviertel''. Its earlier names were ''Barts Gassen'' (around 13 ...

, 3, 80333, Munich, Germany.hl-ar
"Helmut Lang Bio"
*Helmut Lang

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Via St. Andrea, 14, 20212, Milan, Italy. 1997 *Helmut Lang

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Seilergasse, 6, 1010, Vienna, Austria. *Helmut Lang New York, Worldwide Flagship Store, 80 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012. *Helmut Lang Headquarters, 80 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012, USA. 2000 *Helmut Lang

Store-within-a-store A store-within-a-store, also referred to as shop-in-shop, is an agreement in which a retailer rents a part of the retail space to be used by a different company to run another, independent shop. Origins In the early days of cellular telephone gr ...

, Printemps, 64 Bld. Haussman, 75451, Paris, France. *Helmut Lang

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, Store-within-a-store, 228-230 Landmark Central, Hong Kong.Socha, Miles. "Helmut Lang Furthers Asian Retail Expansion". Women's Wear Daily 4 August 2000 *Helmut Lang

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, Store-within-a-store, 9 Scott Road #02-10/11/12/13, Pacific Plaza, 228210, Singapore. *Helmut Lang

Aichi is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefectu ...

, Store-within-a-store, Nagoya Mitsukoshi, Mitsukoshi Nagoya Sakae 2F, 3-5-1 Sakae, Naka-ku Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. *Helmut Lang

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Store-within-a-store, Isetan Shinjuku Men, Isetan Shinjuku Men's-Kan 3F, 3-14-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo. *Helmut Lang Tokyo, Store-within-a-store, Isetan Shinjuku Women, Isetan Shinjuku Annex Building 4F, 3-14-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo. *Helmut Lang Tokyo, Store-within-a-store, Shibuya Seibu Men, Seibu Shibuya Annex B 1F/4F, 21-1 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya, Tokyo. *Helmut Lang Tokyo, Store-within-a-store, Shibuya Seibu Women, Seibu Shibuya Annex B 1F/4F, 21-1 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya. *Helmut Lang

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

, Store-within-a-store, 2F, Shinsegae Department Store Kangnam Branch, 19-3 Banpo-dong, Seocho-ku, Seoul. *Helmut Lang

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Dainichi-Akashicho Building 18, Akashi-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe-shi, Hyogo, Japan. *Helmut Lang Parfums New York, 81 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012. 2002 *Helmut Lang Studio, 142 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012.Alfano, Jennifer. "Inner Sanctum". ''V Man'' September 2004 *Helmut Lang Made-to-Measure New York, 142 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012. 2003 *Helmut Lang Paris, 219 Rue Saint-Honore, 75001, Paris. *Helmut Lang Milan (new location), Via della Spiga, 11, Milan, 20121.

Fragrance Projects

Four different scents were created by Lang in cooperation with

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...

, all of which were discontinued with the 2005 closing of the brand. *Helmut Lang (Women's) - 2000 *Helmut Lang Pour Homme (Men's) - 2001 *Helmut Lang Velviona (women's and men's) - limited release available exclusively at New York store - 2001 *Helmut Lang Cuiron (men's) - 2002

Awards

* CFDA, Best International Designer of the Year, 1996. *

VH-1 VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Communi ...

/Vogue Award, Best Menswear Designer of the Year, 1997. *Fine Arts of Vienna, 1997. *Pitti Immagine Award, Best Designer of the Nineties, 1998. *

New York Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...

Best Designer of the Year Award, 1998. *I.D. Magazine, Design Distinction Award for Environments, 1998. *NYC Chapter of the American Institute of Architects: Award for Interiors, 1998. *

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

/Architectural Record Award, 1999. *The

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

, Award for Interior Architecture, 1999. * CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year, 2000. * GQ Designer of the Year, 2004. *

Fashion Group The Fashion Group International (FGI) is a global, non-profit, professional organization founded in 1930 in New York City to benefit the fashion industry. FGI currently has over 5000 members in the fashion industry including apparel, accessories, b ...

International,“The Imagineers of Our Time" Award, 2004. *LEAD Award, 2005. *

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian D ...

, 2009

Bibliography

Key interviews *Armstrong, Annie. “'There is No Plan B’: Helmut Lang on Turning His Fashion Archive into Sculpture." ''artnews.com'' (''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...

''). 19 September 2019. *Belcove, Julie L. “From Fashion to Art: Helmut Lang’s Second Act." ''wsj.com'' ('' WSJ.''). 6 January 2015. *Borrelli-Persson, Laird. “'No Regrets.' Helmut Lang Speaks About His 'Living Archive' Intervention at the MAK in Vienna and His Work in Fashion." ''vogue.com'' (''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

''). 26 February 2020. *Bourgeois, Louise, "Louise Bourgeois on...Helmut Lang," ''

Wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...

''. October 2008. *Frankel, Susannah, "Helmut Lang," '' AnOther Magazine''. September 2010

*Gavin, Francesca. “A Rare Interview with Helmut Lang." ''anothermag.com'' ('' AnOther Magazine''). 20 September 2019. *McGrath, Charles. “A Seamless Transition From Fashion to Art." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. 1 May 2012. *Obrist, Hans-Ulrich, "Helmut Lang," ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

,'' November 2008

*Petronio, Ezra, "Front Row." ''Self Service''. June 2010

*Porter, Charlie. "Helmut Lang." '' i-D''. August 2008

*Solway, Diane. "Helmut Lang." ''W''. October 2008

*Thompson, Allese. “500 Words: Helmut Lang." ''artforum.com'' (''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

''). 16 January 2015. *Wakefield, Neville. "Conversation Between Helmut Lang and Neville Wakefield." ''absolut.com/helmutlang''. September 2008

*Wakefield, Neville. “Helmut Lang”. ''The Journal''. January 200

References

External links

Helmut Lang Studio web site

hl-art web site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lang, Helmut People from Donaustadt 1956 births Living people Austrian artists Austrian fashion designers Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art Menswear designers