Sander Lak and Rem Koolhaas Celebrate the Guggenheim’s New Exhibition + a Sies Marjan Capsule Collection

“This is not an art show; it is an effort to explore the contours of a ‘new’ countryside,” reads the text splashed on a wall at the first of the Guggenheim’s upward spiral incline. A surprising thing to read given it greets guests at the art museum’s newest exhibition, cocurated by Rem Koolhaas, entitled Countryside, the Future.

Opened last week, the show has fully taken over the Frank Lloyd Wright building. Outside, there’s a parked tractor; inside, bushels of hay are suspended within the atrium; underfoot, sheep, wind turbines, and other emblems of country life are stuck to the ground; and every available surface within the museum is wallpapered, printed, and cluttered with imagery, statistics, and diagrams. Altogether, the viewer might feel as though they have stepped into an immersive PowerPoint presentation that, per the exhibition’s press release, examines “the modern conception of leisure, large-scale planning by political forces, climate change, migration, human and nonhuman ecosystems, market-driven preservation, artificial and organic coexistence, and other forms of radical experimentation that are altering landscapes across the world.”

To support the show, Sies Marjan designer Sander Lak, who shares a Dutch heritage with Koolhaas, created a capsule collection. The exhibition and the collection were celebrated at a breakfast last Thursday morning, which included a Q&A with Lak, Koolhaas, and Justin Beal.

Over egg frittatas and yogurt parfaits, guests heard the two creatives in conversation. On the more-is-more format of the exhibition, Koolhaas noted, “I would say even if you don’t read the show, you nevertheless get the point of the show, or at least that was our attempt.” And on why there is fake art in the show (the text did say this was not an art show, after all), essentially it was a matter of money. “The sheer enormity of insurance bills dictates the parameters of what happens in our culture…. So that [real art] was impossible and didn t happen. And therefore, fake became the only option. But then of course by default, it’s also an interesting contrast between the real and fake art.”

Lak went on to speak of faking it within his chosen medium—the transition a garment endures from its runway iteration to its retail-friendly final state—and his new collection, which he produced in partnership with Koolhaas and AMO, a studio within the architectural practice of OMA. “We did a really amazing capsule collection, so have a look in the gift shop,” said Lak before adding, “Sorry, I had to do my commercial!”