October 2015 | |
Fashionistas Fight Back! Juror: Shana Nys Dambrot Exhibition Dates: October 3 - November 14, 2015 Opening Reception: October 3rd, 6-10pm
Second Reception November 7th, 6-10pm
Pickup artwork: Sunday November 15th Noon-5pm Thursday Nov 19th 12-5, Friday Nov 20th 12-5
Fashion is a seductive powerhouse in contemporary culture, worthy of celebration and critique. Fashion is a weapon --- against boredom, the prosaic, and the humdrum. With a joie de vivre that is irrepressible, fashionistas fight back against mediocrity, conventional thinking, and bad taste. The catwalk is a platform with only one plank: freedom of self-expression. “Joy wants eternity,” as Nietzsche wrote. To see modernity in the ruffle of a dress is a form of clairvoyance. The drama in fashion’s “street theater” inspires designers, photographers, musicians and artists of all kinds, to reach new heights of style. Think Marina Abramovic who now has a gig with Givenchy. And Prada is synonymous with cerebral interventions into the world of art. Recent retrospectives of major designers signal deeper appreciation of their creativity. In the sumptuous, sensual Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity (2013) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manet is quoted: “The latest fashion is absolutely necessary for a painting. It’s what matters most.” The Impressionists captured the novelty of fashion’s fleeting allure so exquisitely it makes one ache for the Paris of the past. Such is fashion’s power, that it can immortalize a time and place. The juror for Fashionistas Fight Back! will select works of painting, photography, video, sculpture, craft --- and the dressmaker’s art. Even when displayed on a rigid dressmaker’s form, a gown can evoke the impossibly beautiful wearer. But sometimes avant-garde designers undermine our expectations by using unusual or re-cycled materials. And who can forget Bjork arriving at the Academy Awards dressed as --- was that a swan? Or Rodarte’s wearable sculpture with bulges reminiscent of the Willendorf fertility idol. Despite the bellicosity of the term “fashionistas,” it fits perfectly: fashion revolutionaries living in the urban jungle, armed with attitude. But sometimes reality pops the bubble: AIDS, anorexia, animal pelts versus faux fur, dangerous conditions for underpaid workers, pressure from “fast fashion” with styles see-sawing between the normal and the weird, disposable clothes piling up in landfills, the perils of “heroin chic,” and the tilt toward the pornographic in fashion advertising, a far cry from the classic photography of Vogue in the 1950s. Graphic Design by Dali Polivka
Trevor Messersmith, Glove (2011), Photography, 12" x 10"
Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Los Angeles. She is currently LA Editor for Whitehot Magazine, Arts Editor for Vs. Magazine, Contributing Editor to Art Ltd., and a contributor to the LA Weekly, Flaunt, Huffington Post, Montage, Desert Magazine, and KCET's Artbound. She studied Art History at Vassar College, curates one or two exhibitions a year, and speaks in public with alarming frequency. An account of her activities is sometimes updated at sndx.net.
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