I wish I could see the Helmut Lang's solo exhibit, Make It Hard at the Fireplace project, East Hampton. Although when reading Lang's interview on Hintmag.com there was a sentence in it that made me wince....
"What methods did you use to destroy the reported 6000 garments from your fashion archives?
Lang: 'The pieces where put through a big shredder truck under my supervision.'"
...wow, to imagine beautiful garments, with stunning detail be shredded in a huge piece of machinery, is an idea that is so far away from one another that this intrigues me. I wonder if this was a hard task- to choose which pieces to shred and which to have for Lang's archive, yet Lang seemed quite relaxed in his choices, saying, 'I shredded all the pieces without remorse or preference. It was about erasing the difference of what they once stood for.'
Although the sculptures look quite simple, in that they don't have complex silhouettes, I reckon when seen up close they are a very interesting sculpture to look at- to understand which collection each sculpture holds is quite interesting.
If anyone gets the opportunity to see it, please fill me in!
An artist we need to consider for our ‘Matchbox’ shoot is Cindy Sherman.
Sherman is an American photographer and film director, she is well known for her conceptual portraits where she herself, is always the model. For each photographic project she seems to take on roles of different characters for her work. In 1981, a project named ‘Centerfolds’ questioned the idea of stereotyping women in films, magazines and TV. In discussion about this project, Cindy stated,
"In content I wanted a man opening up the magazine suddenly look at it with an expectation of something lascivious and then feel like the violator that they would be. Looking at this woman who is perhaps a victim. I didn't think of them as victims at the time... But I suppose... Obviously I'm trying to make someone feel bad for having a certain expectation."
In 2006 there was an exhibition, a retrospective for Sherman‘s work: a spokesperson for the exhibition spoke their thoughts on the pieces:
‘What emerges through these images is a subtle analysis of individual identity, both the fantasies that it generates and the forces that shape it. This immersion in the uncertain, conflictual zones where individual identity struggles with the collective imaginary, stereotypes and issues of symbolic power, can be either playful or—when it touches on horror and repulsion, on the decay and dismembering of the body—very dark’.
Sherman’s work seems to question roles and identity, specifically of women, this I think will naturally come through within our images for the matchbox photo shoot. When thinking about mass consumerism, it is usually women that seem to have the want and need to be ‘similar’ in society, yet somehow, women tend to want to be unique in society. Our images are created to question and highlight why we want to be a ‘mass consumer’ society. Not only does Sherman’s work have more complex meaning’s but, when looking at her imagery she commonly looks like a mannequin: her look isn’t heavily natural- this could be good for us to look at for make up ideas for the shoot. Sherman is very ironic and literal in her shoots, I like this.
In our lecture the other day, where we discussed art and fashion: its crossovers and links, we were given plenty of names of creative people in creative industries and one man that stood out to me, when considering our ideas for the ‘matchbox’ shoot, was Graham Dolphin.
His name stuck out because Adam explained to us his projects and the work Dolphin creates: within his work he specialises in defacing beauty and fashion imagery, this is something I think we are wanting to consider in our shoot, whether it be on the day of the shoot or through post production. Dolphin's almost compulsion of re-presenting the objects, images, sounds and music of fashion as well as popular culture, is Dolphin's trademark in his work. Dolphin’s work focuses on objects and icons of the music and fashion industry, modernising them into constructed imagery that highlight obsessions with the progressive world of mass culture. In our shoot we want to highlight and look at ideas surrounding mass consumerism and ideas with complexities, rather than creating fashion imagery that just looks like ‘pretty’ and beautiful imagery. Each of us in the group prefer imagery that has underlining meaning.
I love the fact that Dolphin works onto his objects and images and adds layers to the imagery. His main way of introducing fashion in his work is through fashion advertisements- he kinda vandalizes the imagery and turns them into something else. Dolphin’s book, ‘Everything in Vogue’ mainly focuses on Dolphin’s fashion work but also portrays other projects he has been involved with.
We had a double whammy lecture today, Fashion and Art and Fashion photography and the north.
I was looking forward to the lecture, I knew we would be introduced to plenty of creative people: people I have come across before and new people I haven’t. We were first looking at fashion and art.
I come from both an art background and a fashion background, they naturally crossover whether it be through literal ways, anyone remember the season when Vivienne Westwood had the help from school children who designed artwork that Vivienne used for her collection? Well, this was a literal connection, but naturally what we all see and involve ourselves with influences parts of our lives- I find this is how my natural crossover came from with regards to art and fashion.
At the beginning of the lecture we discussed ways which we though art and fashion were and became connected;
Fashion and art; -they are both creative subjects-help each other -fashion has a widespread publicity-art wants this -influential to each other -fashion is a representation of social culture and politics -fashion has a different history to make reference to -fashion is more accessible -fashion-commercial more so than art -both areas seek financial backing -art-respect-art has an aura -art seems to have more depth and credibility
After our thoughts Adam broke down the concept down into categories. Firstly looking at the fashion exhibition. It’s interesting to think about how images in certain places are looked at differently, for instance Steven Meisel’s Versace adverts were seen in an exhibition, in a gallery but they were also used for commercial use. When thinking about this, I believe, when looking at the ads in a magazine your mind looks at the image in a different way-you tend to look at the image with a sense of want and commercial reasoning, but in a gallery space at an exhibition you tend to question the image more so than in a mag or newspaper- the meaning of the image is unpicked in your mind.
We were shown some examples where fashion and art have been side by side. The exhibition at the National Gallery, ‘Face of Fashion’; and exhibition at the V&A ‘Imperfect Beauty’ for example. It was nice to look at who at these exhibitions were really being exhibited and shown.
Throughout the lecture we were introduced to many creative people in the industry, some highlighted I want to research more, for instance Martha Rosler for her use of collage and Graham Dolphin for his media use and the way he ‘attacks’ beauty/fashion imagery.
The next section we looked at fashion and art, the crossover. We looked at works by Elsa Schiaparelli where she worked with surrealists; also Tracey Emin’s collaboration with Longchamp creating limited addition handbags. The publication that celebrated the crossover initially was ‘Purple’ magazine: they seemed to pioneer fashion and art before anyone really caught on.
After this section we examined the fashion show. We obviously looked at Alexander McQueen’s fashion shows: also Viktor and Rolf and Hussein Chalayan- all these designers I absolutely love, so I really enjoyed discussing their work and looking at their shows. We looked at the fashion show with relation to substance designers (emphasising the process over product); science (designers who give intense attention to technology of fabrics); structure (unique clothing construction- form over function) and statement designers (the designers who use the show to help make a statement).
After this part of the lecture I realised I need to do a lot of research into some professional creative’s in the industry;
-Martha Rosler -Sam Taylor Wood -Graham Dolphin -Vanessa Beecroft (specifically for our matchbox photo shoot) -Dash Snow (found objects-Polaroid’s) -Cindy Sherman (specifically for our matchbox photo shoot) identity of women -Alexander McQueen (specifically at the show with Joel Peter - the mirror room)
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