The LOEWE Spring Summer 2025 men’s show unfolds around a group of objects created by some of the most singular artistic voices of the 20th century.
The seemingly disparate assembly is an exercise in curatorial subjectivity and narrative association. It channels Susan Sontag’s call for an ‘erotics of art’, privileging sensual pleasure over interpretation. Peter Hujar, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Carlo Scarpa and Paul Thek are united by their fierce adherence to independence and artistic freedom; each pursued their work with quiet radicality. In their hands, everyday objects are elevated to the extraordinary: a chair, a coat-stand and an easel possess the complexity of a building, a photograph of a single shoe becomes a monument, and a scattering of whimsical artefacts are enshrined in bronze. The fractured mise-en-scène —read as both a room and a landscape— is haunted by an imagined cast of characters. The drama moves from fantasy to reality, from a whimsical fairytale to the mundane, yet sacred, rituals of daily life.
Peter Hujar (1934–1987) is celebrated for his black and white portraits of friends, lovers and protagonists of the downtown New York scene of the 1970s and 80s. Hujar’s meticulous attention to composition, lighting and the craft of the photographic print lend his works a physical intensity. Hujar also captured landscapes, animals and objects —including the single high-heeled shoe shown as part of this presentation— demonstrating his innate ability to infuse the seemingly banal with profound meaning and resonance.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) was a pioneering Scottish architect and designer, celebrated for his distinctive language built on an innovative fusion of styles: the fluidity of Art Nouveau, the minimal clarity of Japanese design, and emerging modernist principles. His work encompassed architecture, interior design and furniture, often brought together to create complete decorative environments. The Half Moon Chair and the Hat, Coat and Umbrella Stand were designed in 1897 for the Luncheon Room of the Argyle Street Tea Rooms. The chair, one of the architect’s most complex furniture constructions and inspired by traditional ladder-back chairs, was later used for Mackintosh’s own flat in Glasgow which he designed with his wife, Margaret Macdonald, in 1900.
Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) was an influential Italian architect and designer whose unique body of work is characterised by meticulous craftsmanship and innovative use of materials. Projects such as his renovation of the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona and the Brion Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole showcase his mastery in combining concrete, wood, glass, and metal, with designs that emphasise sensory experience. Scarpa’s furniture designs exemplify his design philosophy, each piece carefully constructed to showcase the natural beauty of the materials, and often incorporating subtle, yet intricate joinery techniques, as seen in his easel which he designed in 1995.
Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an American writer and intellectual. Paul Thek and Peter Hujar were among some of the many artists she befriended and wrote about. Against Interpretation (1966) is perhaps her best-known work. In the titular essay Sontag counters what she sees as a negative turn in contemporary criticism towards fixing or imposing meaning onto a work of art, believing that ‘Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art’. Instead, she believed in the mystery of the art object and the beauty of allowing the viewer to engage with it on their own terms.
Paul Thek (1933–1988) is one of the most original artists of the post-war period. Working in painting, sculpture and immersive narrative installation, Thek explored the universal themes of transformation and the ephemeral nature of existence. The Personal Effects of the Pied Piper was originally created in 1975–76. Based on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, it comprises a collection of everyday objects cast in bronze, arranged on the ground to evoke the titular character’s forest dwelling.
