grazerkunstverein

(Publication)

Eyes

Inge Grognard, Tom Engels, Julie Peeters

2025

This publication accompanies Eyes, an exhibition presented in public space, featuring seven billboards across the city of Graz, each displaying compositions of eye makeup by Inge Grognard, photographed by Grognard herself backstage during the preparation of runway preparations and fashion shoots. Much like the large-scale billboards, the images in Eyes focus exclusively on the eye, highlighting it as an isolated subject, emphasizing it as a site of composition, color, and texture, while retaining its capacity to convey emotion and depth. Makeup has a long history as both adornment and self-expression, embedded in daily rituals yet constantly evolving as a form of creative and cultural practice. By isolating the eye, Eyes highlights this tension between routine and abstraction; displaced from their original context, the images draw attention to makeup as an independent visual language rather than a supporting element within a larger aesthetic context. Grognard is known for her raw, unconventional approach to makeup, often exploring distortion, asymmetry, and non-traditional materials. Eyes highlights these motifs by transferring them within the wider urban environment, inviting passersby to engage with makeup not as mere embellishment, but as a potent act of composition – one that reclaims it as a site of agency and unruliness.

The publication is the tenth in a series of compact volumes that accompany the exhibition program at Grazer Kunstverein. 

Editors: Tom Engels, Julie Peeters
Images: Inge Grognard
Graphic Design: Julie Peeters
Printing and binding: Benedict Press, Münsterschwarzach
Edition: 350
Typeface: Kleisch GK by Chiachi Chao
Photo credits: All photographs in this publication are by Inge Grognard, documenting her makeup work for Alyx, Amiri, ATLEIN, Balenciaga, Christian Wijnants, Diesel, Dumitrascu, Eckhaus Latta, Emilio Pucci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Junya Watanabe, Peter Pilotto, Uma Wang, Vetements, among others. 
64 pages, color
ISBN: 978-3-9505800-1-3
Price: 15,- euros, 9 for members

INGE GROGNARD (b. 1958) is a pioneering Belgian makeup artist whose work has shaped avant-garde fashion for decades. As a teenager, she befriended Martin Margiela—an encounter that shaped both their creative paths, leading to a two-decade collaboration that helped define the raw, deconstructed aesthetic of Maison Martin Margiela. In the mid-1980s, Grognard became an integral force within the Antwerp Six, working closely with Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee. Her unconventional approach to beauty—gritty, surreal, and often unsettling—became a hallmark of Belgian fashion’s radical identity. Grognard has continuously challenged conventional beauty standards, rejecting polished perfection in favor of rawness, imperfection, and subversion. Her work often emphasizes distortion, asymmetry, and unconventional materials, pushing the boundaries of what is traditionally considered beautiful. Beyond the Antwerp Six, Grognard continued to shape the next wave of designers emerging from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts Fashion Department, including Raf Simons, Veronique Branquinho, Haider Ackermann, A.F. Vandevorst, Bernhard Willhelm, Christian Wijnants, Demna Gvasalia, and Glenn Martens. Her work extends across some of the most groundbreaking houses in fashion, from Balenciaga and Rick Owens to Vetements, Y/Project, Eckhaus Latta, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Throughout her career, she has collaborated closely with her lifelong partner, photographer Ronald Stoops.