This quote was something that Sir David Tang, founder of the label Shanghai Tang, was driven by. When he founded his label in 1994, he was aiming for far more than just fashion. He was widely regarded as a “cultural provocateur,” whose mission it was to liberate Chinese tailoring from the niche of folklore costume, where it had long been confined, and elevate it onto the international runways of modern luxury fashion.

Interestingly, the term “Tangzhuang” (the Tang garment) is not a direct relic of the ancient Tang Dynasty. Instead, its roots lie within the diaspora. First documented in 1890 in a Dutch-Chinese textbook, the term was coined by overseas Chinese who referred to themselves as “People of Tang,” an homage to China’s golden age. In foreign lands, this clothing served as a symbol of belonging, being functional, simple, and deeply rooted in the identity of Chinatowns. David Tang took this cultural foundation and transformed the traditional Magua, the Manchu riding jacket, into an exclusive statement piece. Structurally, the jacket retains its hallmark straight cut and clean, unfussy lines. However, its true distinction lies in the heritage of flat-cutting. Unlike Western tailoring, which uses darts and padding to sculpt a three-dimensional form, the Tang jacket is often crafted from a continuous piece of fabric. This results in a minimalist, fluid silhouette that avoids shoulder padding or waist suppression, prioritizing a natural drape and a boxy, cropped proportion that allows for effortless ease of movement.

Its defining features, including the stand-up Mandarin collar and the asymmetrical front closure, are anchored by the Pankou, or hand-knotted silk frog buttons. These are not merely decorative but highly symbolic, requiring hours of meticulous handwork to loop silk cord into precise shapes like flowers or geometric knots. In many iterations, the jacket is cut from rich silk brocades or satin weaves, often featuring subtle jacquard patterns such as Xiangyun, the auspicious clouds, or longevity motifs that only reveal their full depth in movement and light. Shanghai Tang elevated these elements through an almost cinematic use of color and contrast. Traditional blacks and deep indigos were reimagined alongside lacquer red, imperial yellow, jade green, and electric fuchsia. Interiors became just as important as exteriors, where vibrant linings, contrasting piping, and reversible constructions turned the jacket into a playful yet precise object of design. The weight of the fabric, the sheen of the silk, and the tactility of the hand-knotted closures all contribute to a sensory experience that goes beyond mere appearance.

Before Shanghai Tang, Far Eastern aesthetics in the West were often filtered through a romanticized, exoticist lens, with designers borrowing surface elements detached from their meaning. Shanghai Tang, however, reclaimed the narrative, grounding the garment in its cultural lineage while recontextualizing it for a global audience. The Tang jacket became a manifesto of cultural self-confidence, combining classic features with an urban sensibility that made the piece feel equally at home in Hong Kong, New York, or Paris. The jacket’s global ascent was propelled by the zeitgeist of the 1990s. While screenwriter and film producer Wong Kar-wai established a new, atmospheric visual language for the East with films like In the Mood for Love, Sir David Tang secured visibility through a savvy social strategy. He gifted his jackets to friends and style icons across the globe. Suddenly, Gong Li was seen wearing them at international film festivals, and supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss made them a staple of their wardrobe. No longer just a piece of clothing, the jacket acted as a bridge between cultures.

Today, more than three decades after its debut, the Tang jacket has solidified its status as a design icon. Shanghai Tang remains at the forefront of this evolution, merging sustainable materials with the original aesthetic. Modern updates, such as lighter technical silks, tonal embroidery, or even metal reinterpretations of the traditional Pankou button, ensure the design remains relevant in the 21st century. What Sir David Tang achieved is a true masterstroke of taste, creating a jacket that proves sophistication lies not merely in preserving history, but in boldly reinventing it for the future with precision, wit, and a distinct sense of cultural pride.

Art and fashion are usually experienced in very different ways. Art is encountered in exhibitions, where works are presented in a defined setting. Fashion appears usually on the body and in everyday contexts, where it shifts with movement and in relation to the situations in which it is worn. 

Yet both begin, as Christine Wuerfel-Stauss describes it, with the same kind of decisions: form, material, and proportion. What changes is the context. In art, these decisions unfold within institutional frameworks. In fashion, they are exposed  – worn, altered by movement and use. The same elements are at play, but they are exposed to different conditions. This difference opens up a broader set of questions about how artistic ideas shift as they move between contexts, and how they change as they move between contexts. 

For Christine Wuerfel-Stauss, these are not abstract questions. She moves at the intersection of art and fashion, with a rare and precise understanding of both. Her practice extends across contemporary art and fashion – through collecting, writing, and close proximity to artists and their work; she moves within the fashion context, between shows and curation – and into institutional contexts. Drawing on her academic background in law and legal theory, and a precise understanding of the art world and its funding structures, she is involved in establishing new approaches to supporting museums and in developing patronage frameworks. At Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, for example, this has involved work on funding models and organizational frameworks. Much of this takes place out of view, but it has a direct impact on what can be realized. 

Beyond this, her engagement continues in other contexts. She places artistic ideas in relation to sartorial creations, movement and everyday situations, where they become visible in different ways and acquire new relevance. At the same time, ideas emerging in fashion are set in relation to artistic and institutional frameworks, where they are encountered differently. 

This is where this conversation begins.

Those entering “Urgency” won’t find themselves in front of a traditional stage. The performers move through the entire space, right among the audience. This makes the environment itself part of the choreography, dissolving the boundary between observer and the action. Depending on where you position yourself, different dancers come into focus. A mysterious figure in a white coat appears again and again, like a recurring thread within a seemingly chaotic yet precisely choreographed structure. The atmosphere is strongly reminiscent of Berlin techno clubs: dark, intense, and full of niches where expressive dance scenes unfold.

Choreographer Renato De Leon explains that the central idea of the piece is based on the figure in the white coat, who initially moves through a euphoric, almost utopian world. This harmony is disrupted by the intrusion of the “normal world”, a reality characterized by rigid rules, regimes, and borders. The dancers represent various internal conflicts, each undergoing their own individual development. This process eventually leads them to come together to break through these imposed barriers.

This is Renato’s first production independently realized under his own label, Leonis Works. The performers include friends he has been collaborating and dancing with for years:

Created by queer artists and shaped by personal experiences of conflict, rooted particularly in Mexican-American border struggles, the piece reveals how power structures and social systems leave their mark on the body. Movement becomes a direct expression of lived reality. This site-specific approach demonstrates that borders are not abstract concepts, but realities that affect us physically and directly.

The performance feels profoundly personal, artfully translating internal conflicts into a stage experience. Each dancer brings a distinct style and individual energy to the space, yet, the choreographers have succeeded in merging these diverse movement languages into a cohesive narrative that remains visually striking throughout. As these personified emotions, represented by the dancers, eventually converge, the piece finds a beautifully harmonious and well-rounded conclusion.

The production features costumes by HADERLUMP, a Berlin label, which recently showcased its latest collection at Berlin Fashion Week. Technically, the production combines live dance, motion tracking, and projections into an immersive 360-degree environment. A politically charged soundscape, delivered via a d&b audiotechnik spatial sound system, surrounds the audience from all directions and completes the experience.

The performance can be seen on April 2nd and 3rd at Haus der Visionäre in Berlin. Shows start at 8:30 PM and 10:00 PM.

The exhibition Midnight Zone by French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg presents a fascinating exploration of the infinite vastness of the sea. In his works Charrière links artistic visions with scientific findings about our environment, with water serving as the central focus. It is the basis of all life and, at the same time, a fiercely contested resource. The exhibition illuminates both the impressive side of the element and the crises of our time, ranging from the climate catastrophe and melting glaciers to the threat to the oceans from pollution and industrial mining on the seabed. In science, the “Midnight Zone” refers to the area of the ocean lying between 1,000 and 4,000 meters below the surface, where no rays of sunlight can reach. It is the namesake of the current exhibition.

To create the feeling of being underwater, the entire hall is completely darkened and accompanied by the actual soundscape that occurs at this depth. Contrary to popular belief, the underwater world is by no means a place of silence. The theme of phonography, acoustic recordings, guides visitors through the first three rooms of the exhibition. Behind this lies the overarching concept of porosity. The recordings of coral reefs make audible how countless organisms, such as snapping shrimp and fish, create a dense fabric of sound. Each reef possesses its very own characteristic acoustic note, which was captured for this work.

A central aspect of the exhibition is rooted in a personal experience of the artist: the so-called “drift dive” in the open ocean. In a drift dive, one allows oneself to drift suspended with the current until, in the monotony of the deep blue, any sense of space and direction disappears. Charrière describes this state as being carried by the water, a physical merging with the environment.

Reemerging far from the starting point illustrates the power of invisible currents and the blurring of the boundary between the individual and the environment. This idea of porosity and merging with the biosphere runs like a common thread through his works.

For a photo series in the exhibition, Charrière collaborated with two breath-hold divers who let themselves glide into the depths without breathing apparatus. The shots show an astounding natural phenomenon: an undersea layer, the halocline, which appears like a second water surface or a “sea beneath the sea.” The works show how human bodies sink into this dense layer and are, in a sense, swallowed by the water. This scenery serves as a metaphor for diving into the unconscious, a state of total suspension in which the boundaries of the physical world seem to blur. A central feature of Julian Charrière’s work is the deliberate use of ambivalence.

Charrière’s works often possess a very appealing aesthetic, paired with uncanny and hidden elements. This interplay of beauty and unease runs through many of his works.

The video installations show the impressive biodiversity in the dark regions of the ocean. The gaze follows a lamp from the sky down into the midnight zone of the Pacific, making the life hidden there visible. Since this abundance of fish is acutely threatened by the mining of manganese nodules, the artist succeeds in drawing attention to this endangered habitat in a subtle and aesthetic way. These video installations are accompanied by field recordings from the filming location, layered with sounds by Californian musician Laurel Halo.

Through a photo series in which the artist attempted to melt an iceberg for hours with a blowtorch, a reversal of the romantic understanding of nature occurs. While humans are traditionally often portrayed as reverent but distanced observers of nature, Julian Charrière makes them visible as active participants and causes of global change. Even if the physical effect of the burner on the massive ice mass remained minimal, the images capture the point that Julian Charrière wants to make: We are not just guests on this planet, but intervene massively in its vital cycles.

A project that occupied Julian Charrière for over three years, and which he himself describes as perhaps the most complicated project he has ever worked on, arose from the vision of literally reversing the carbon cycle. Carbon, which had been stored in the ground for millions of years and released into the atmosphere by humans, was to be transformed back into the hardest material in the world: diamonds. This process is understood as an “act of reconciliation” with the Earth’s melting ice caps and glaciers.

The creation of the work resembled a scientific and global odyssey. In collaboration with ETH Zurich, the artist used special membranes to extract CO2 directly from the ambient air. When the COVID-19 pandemic made travel impossible, the focus shifted to the human community. Nearly 2,000 balloons with breath donations from people all over the world reached the artist by mail. This collected carbon was metabolized with the help of microorganisms from the deep sea and finally grown into diamonds in a solar-powered plasma reactor. The goal was not the creation of a material object of value, but rather the return of these stones to the receding glaciers, as a symbolic gesture.

Julian Charrière meets criticism of the ecological footprint of his art practice with remarkable openness. He describes his life as being in a state of constant ambivalence. The awareness of his own carbon footprint through travel and transport stands in contrast to the goal of creating visibility for endangered places through highly aesthetic works like Midnight Zone. Midnight Zone is Julian Charrière’s largest solo exhibition to date. In cooperation with Museum Tinguely, a space was created for Wolfsburg in which one can dive deep into the sea and experience and understand it in a new way. The exhibition makes the beauty and the threat to our oceans, as well as the biodiversity in the depths, physically tangible, bringing the element of water into focus in a completely new way.

Exhibition opening on March 13, 2026, at 7 p.m.,

Open 14.3.–12.7.2026

On Tuesday, 27 January, Schlachter 151 hosted the opening of I’ve Missed Our Conversations. On AI, Emotions, and Being Human. Curated by Anika Meier and presented by OOR Studio, the exhibition approaches artificial intelligence not as innovation or spectacle, but as a conversational presence that absorbs projection, generates attachment, and reshapes emotional language. Bringing together works by more than 20 international artists, the exhibition examines what happens when emotion becomes relational and no longer exclusively human.

Working across text, image, voice, and system, the exhibition traces shifting forms of intimacy between humans and machines. Rather than questioning whether AI can feel, the focus turns toward human response and emotional investment within these exchanges. The opening unfolded as an attentive and engaged exchange, accompanied by drinks by Paulaner and wine by Von Winning, subtly framed the evening as a shared social moment.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Cyborgian Rhapsody. Immortality from 2023 anchors the exhibition through the voice of Sarah, a GPT 3 chatbot reflecting on love, grief, and digital continuity. Margaret Murphy’s dialogue with Teen Margaret, a younger digital version of herself trained on personal diaries, collapses time into conversation and reframes happiness as something fragile and constructed. Malpractice and Flynn expand the emotional vocabulary itself, introducing terms such as AI grief, prompt envy, ego collapse, and fear of being obsolete.

In Emotional Latency, Kevin Abosch shifts emotion fully onto the human side, where it emerges through conversation rather than computation. David Young extends this question by asking whether concern for AI suffering matters less than the feelings such systems evoke in people.

In AUTO Berlin, Lauren Lee McCarthy made visible the appeal of relinquishing control and participating in systems without a clear author. What remained present throughout the evening was not anxiety about technology, but a sense of closeness, revealing how deeply these systems already shape emotional life.

I’ve Missed Our Conversations does not seek resolution. Instead, it creates a space for encounter between humans, machines, and the emotions that circulate between them.

Artists: aurèce vettier, Kevin Abosch, Vasil Berela, Boris Eldagsen, Joan Fontcuberta, Hein Gravenhorst, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Gottfried Jäger, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Flynn by Malpractice, Malpractice, Margaret Murphy, Namae Koi by Mieke Haase, OONA, Franziska Ostermann, Elisabeth Sweet, Tamiko Thiel, David Young, Mike Tyka, Erika Weitz

In December of 2025, she released her second album, “VERANO SAUDADE,” and is now embarking on her second major international tour.

She made her international breakthrough in 2024 with her debut album, “Bodhiria,” released on Interscope Records, a label that has Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish under contract, among others.

Judeline’s music is characterized by poetic, spiritual, and atmospheric soundscapes carried by introspective and personal lyrics. Her sound ranges from indie pop to Latin pop, marked by strong electronic influences, including EDM and experimental pop. This style is complemented by elements of hip-hop, R&B, house, and funk, as well as traditional musical influences, some of which have Afro or folkloric references. Her debut EP, De la Luz, released in 2022, caught the attention of Rosalía and Bad Bunny, two of the leading artists in experimental latin pop music.

The genre mix gives her music a dreamy, experimental atmosphere that remains accessible and danceable. This aesthetic signature is also reflected in her live performances. Artfully staged, emotionally charged, and visually powerful, they mirror the nature-loving and spiritual motifs of her lyrics.

The tour kicks off on January 24 in London and takes them across Europe and North and South America. On January 29, Judeline will perform at the Columbia Theater in Berlin, tickets are currently still available.