Dazzling as the Sicilian Sun

Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen is also known as Petits Poèmes en prose; Dolce & Gabbana’s exhibition From the Heart to the Hands, scheduled to tour after its recent debut at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, may indeed be described as Petits Poèmes en choses. Little poems made up of things. Dolce & Gabbana’s poetry here is wordless, emotions embodied not in eyes, expressions, or body language, but conveyed in a wealth of assembled materials and things. Ceramics, mirrored glass, gold, stucco, chandeliers, great swaths of draped fabrics, wrought-iron work, fine examples of artisanal craft, and above all, garments – dreamlike, handmade garments, the work of great artists, to whom this exhibition pays homage. The setting, inspired by Domenico Dolce’s homeland of Sicily, is a rich pageantry of textures, ranging from the aristocratic to more of a pop vernacular, and from the dramatic, Baroque black and gold to the white of exuberant Sicilian stucco work – expressing a very personal sentiment, but one that, like a poem, embodies a world.