It's the clothes, not the people: How the fashion fetish
affects art
It's not only the professional public that's sitting in the front row at the
fashion shows in
Paris , Milan,
New York, or
London. Artists, pop stars, and other celebrities are increasingly using
the fashion runway as a platform for setting themselves in scene. As a
criterion in the economy of attention, the VIP cult is certainly one that
shouldn't be underestimated. Yet it's not only about the glamour, which is
still more strongly associated with fashion than anything else, at least
by the mass media - it's also about a pragmatic mutual exchange: Harald
Fricke on the affinities between art and fashion and the path to "art
couture."
Vivienne-Westwood-Fashion-Show / Photo: Bettina Allamoda / VG Bildkunst
Presumably, Donatella Versace's
upholstered jackets and rhinestone accessories will be seen in a few
weeks' time in Missy Elliott's
new video clip, which will elevate them to the "must have" attire of this
season. In the case of the British artist
Tracey Emin, her love of
Vivienne Westwood dresses goes so far that she's already modeled for
the London-based designer's collections. In the process, she's recruited a
new clientele for Westwood: among her own collectors in the art world,
particularly the women.
Karen Kilimnik: What the Hell, 1990
Deutsche Bank Collection
©Monika
Sprüth und Philomene Magers
Karen Kilimnik's works testify to just how far the
fashion fetish affects art. Her obsession is directed at the promises of
beauty in the glossy magazines;
Kate Moss is her authority for fame in fashion. Over the years, Kilimnik
has portayed the supermodel's look in countless drawings, examining the
way in which she constantly reinvents herself for
Vogue, Cosmopolitan
, or Calvin Klein
campaigns. The direct manner in which the artist admires her "model"
doesn't even contain a hint of irony. The naiveté of representation in the
almost touchingly girlish drawings makes it all the more clear to what
extent Moss has become a substitute object for Kilimnik. Despite this, her
manic working process reveals the mechanisms through which the fashion
world almost industrially injects beauty into its models. Thus, Kilimnik's
drawings contain minute lists of components that have gone into making
Moss a star:
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lip gloss by
Ambrosia , rouge by
Elizabeth Arden. The products are revealed like so many ingredients of
a luxurious dinner; fashion creates its myths out of colors, creams,
quirky hats, neck bands. Kilimnik carries this material battle with
cosmetics and fabrics into the painting field with great consistency.
Marc Jacobs and Claus Lahrs at Takashi Murakami's Opening at
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York 2003 , © Photo: Patric McMullan
In an inverse sense, bands like
Red Hot Chili Peppers use the visual world of art in their search for
extravagant images. In their last video
"Can't stop", the group staged a strange dress-up performance
based on works by
Erwin Wurm. The Austrian sculptor, for his part, has since begun accepting
commissions from the fashion world; among other things, he staged a
commercial for Marc Jacobs
with shirts he wore inappropriately as pants. In the process, Wurm proves to
be a slightly clownish heir to
Andy Warhol, who already did an ad for the van Laack shirt company in
1981 before modeling for the Zoli agency two years later. And
Helmut Lang has been advertising his cool jeans for years already using
self-portraits and other images from the estate of the late photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe. In any case, there's no end in sight to the "art
couture" crossover.
Red Hot Chili Peppers:
Stills from the Video "Can't Stop", 2003
Evidently, as an interface between art and pop culture, fashion unleashes a
certain amount of synergy: some people call the result "lifestyle" and
shrug their shoulders; others see the connection as proof of a world in
which the opposites of "high" and "low" have become played out and in
which every form of cultural expression has entered everyday life. Or, as
Warhol perceptively responded to the question of whether
pop art were a fashion: "Yes, it's fashion, but I don't see what
difference that makes." This dissolution of disciplines would mean that
one of Modernism's demands would at last be met - that art and life cannot
be separated. Everything is form, and this is why we can fight about the
content in view of the phenomena.
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