The luxury Swiss skincare brand, La Prairie, is returning to Frieze New York with a special installation featuring its new release (a revitalizing night balm), and the next installment of the brand’s collaboration with media artist, Carla Chan.
La Prairie is setting up a luxe lounge space on location at The Shed in N.Y.C., where art fair-goers can try beauty treatments on-site, shop the latest line-up in its luxury collections, and of course, experience the new artwork from Chan, which is debuting for the first time at Frieze New York.
The first collaboration between La Prairie and Chan, which was titled “Space Between the Light Glows,” depicted the Swiss mountains at golden hour. It debuted to coincide with La Prairie’s sustainable re-imagining of its Pure Gold Collection. This year at Frieze New York (running from May 18-22), Chan’s artwork evolves into the next phase with “Fading Space of Dawn,” which showcases the darkness of dawn to reflect the latest launch in La Prairie’s Pure Gold Collection, the Radiance Nocturnal Balm.
“In this new work, I focus on the moment when nature disappears into the darkness and vanishes
into the unseen. Using digital media, I created a space to reflect on nature and its future,” Chan says in a statement.
“Fading Space of Dawn” (which is premiering at Frieze New York and will also be featured at Art Basel Hong Kong from May 25-29) uses AR technology to display immersive visual landscapes of the Swiss Alps from dusk till dawn.
There will also be an NFT experience from Chan at Frieze called, “Space Beyond,” depicting a landscape featuring 366 different views that’s constantly changing due to real-time meteorological data.
The area Chan focused on has a close connection to her relationship with La Prairie, and the landscapes they both strive to preserve.
“My inspiration for the NFT started after my first residency with La Prairie, at the Monte Rosa Hut, situated close to Switzerland’s most impressive — and endangered — landscapes: glaciers. The artwork speaks about fading nature by capturing landscapes that will soon no longer exist. I like the idea that the work continues to evolve beyond the artist’s life,” Chan said in the release.
The NFTs will debut on May 18 at the start of the art fair, and part of the proceeds of the NFT sales will be donated to a long-term partner of La Prairie, ETH Zurich Department of Glaciology, which is focused on glacier studies and preservation.
Like Chan, La Prairie was also inspired by the powerful qualities of nature, particularly the energy in the mineral shores of Iac Léman, when creating its new Pure Gold Radiance Nocturnal Balm, which is meant to “amplify skin’s nightly regenerating processes.”
When the whole partnership kicked off with Chan, the re-launch of Pure Gold marked important moves La Prairie made toward sustainability (its most ambitious to date), merging both the brand and Chan’s belief in the power and importance of protecting nature (which is a source of inspiration for her work).
“I believe that through our expertise, beliefs and heritage, we share a common artistic vision and aesthetics,” Chan said about the similarities in her work as an artist to the brand. “However, our core synergy remains in our interest in nature and how the beauty of nature is a continuous source of inspiration that we need to preserve.”
Frieze New York guests won’t want to miss the display at La Prairie’s lounge, located on the 8th floor of The Shed in N.Y.C., where all attendees at the fair can view the “Space Beyond” NFT and have a chance to try (and for the first time, shop!) the new Pure Gold Radiance Nocturnal Balm. There will also be “Art of Perfection” beauty treatments available on-site.
Frieze New York will take place at The Shed in New York City from May 18-22.
