Madame Song:
Pioneering Art and Fashion in China

Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China is the first-ever museum exhibition in the world dedicated to Song Huai-Kuei – widely known during her lifetime as Madame Song –whose extraordinary story offers a lens through which audiences appreciate the significant transformation of China’s visual culture following the country’s reform and opening to the world. Together with her husband, the Bulgarian fibre artist Maryn Varbanov, Song fosters a vibrant community of avant-garde artists. In her role as Pierre Cardin’s chief representative in China, she cultivates an international network of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and fashion designers. Song’s extensive social network and her impact on China’s contemporary cultural development make her one of the most influential figures within China’s elite cultural circles of the 1980s and 1990s.