Fashionable Art

// January 5th, 2010 // b-scene // Jane

With the definition of what is ‘art’ ever expanding, forums for creative expression are appearing everywhere, and most obviously in fashion. Fashion and art have always been linked but only recently (in the grand scheme) considered one and the same.

Our very own Robin Antar uses fashion as inspiration for her art. Antar describes her work as “the precise art of creating virtual records of contemporary culture — capturing common, everyday items in stone.” She explains her process, ” essentially, I replicate these items on a real life-scale, complete with meticulous detail. I achieve this absolute realism by incorporating parts of the actual object, as well as custom-made stains, paints, plastics and gold leaf. It’s more than art imitating life, it’s art mirroring life.”

Dutch designers Fioen van Balgooi and Berber Soepboer are producing eco-friendly clothing that is not only artistic, but versatile. Known as ‘fragmented’clothing, the threads resemble a piece from Legoland rather than actual clothing. The same garment can be worn in countless ways as its assembly is up to the wearer. Pieces are snapped together like Legos and altered on demand. Wearable art, with you as artist! The pieces require no sewing, can be washed separately, and replaced just as easily which reduces textile waste, making this fashion statement environmently sound, supposedly… That is if you can stand to wear this more than once a year. Fragmented Textiles was recently on display at Beyond Green, Good Design at the World Fashion Centre in Amsterdam.

So we’ve seen art imitating fashion, and fashion imitating art…and now art using fashion to make a political statement, ha! This spring, a crane rising five stories will drop more than 10 tons of used clothes into the cavernous drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory. Calling the spectacle ‘No Man’s Land’ (good pun eh?) the piles of clothing are expected to reach heights of 40 ft.

The show is the creation of French artist Christian Boltanski and will occupy the armory from May 12 through June 14. Tom Eccles, the armory’s consulting curator and executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture at Bard College says “it’s a piece with political resonance. The clothing represents humanity, while the crane, man’s capacity for inhumanity.”

All the pieces are being borrowed from local used-clothing distributors and will be returned once the projects have ended–so it is environmentally friendly. Win-win.

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