1. Chalayan’s works in clothing, like Afterwords (2000) and Burka (1996), are often challenging to both the viewer and the wearer. What are your personal responses to these works? Are Afterwords and Burka fashion, or are they art? What is the difference?
Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion?
Initially when looking at these two very interesting and challenging pieces I think they are a mix between fashion wear and an art form. Fashion wear can be defined as ‘a term usually used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour, beauty and style it is also applies to a prevailing mode of expression, but quite often applies to a personal mode of expression that may or may not apply to all.’ (Author unknown (2011) Celebrity Fashion and Runway Styles.) However one of the main points of postmodernism it cannot be defined as it is constantly challenging modernist thinking.
These two interesting works both challenge these ideologies. Burka (1996) challenges the Muslim culture and the beliefs they are taught through many highly symbolic parts of the culture. For example the Qu ran’. Muslim woman are not allowed to show their bodies and have to protect their identities. However Chalayan has challenged this as in each of the models, the viewer cannot see their identities. This challenging nature of his works makes me eventually lean towards the ‘art’ category for his works.
2. Chalayan has strong links to industry. Pieces like The Level Tunnel (2006) and Repose (2006) are made in collaboration with, and paid for by, commercial business; in these cases, a vodka company and a crystal manufacturer. How does this impact on the nature of Chalayan’s work? Does the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products? Is it still art?
By being paid to do something for a company or corporation in accordance with a brief does some how change ones work category. It can be seen as ‘advertising’ not just ‘art’. As a viewer you may see it just as advertising and dismiss it, or you can perceive the works in a more creative manner. Advertisements often use very creative techniques to sell and represent an object or product. Advertisements are simply another form or media used to show artwork in our society today.
In these collaborations between the artist and company to produce a advertisement, Chalayan is simply showing his creative talent to another group of people in society and may not have the immediate response from the consumer to his works, but instead it sells another product. However, he would still be getting some recognition from his works and is getting a pay cheque. I think it has just been switched around. Instead of an artist or designer making something and not knowing who will buy it, he has been approached to produce something that they are after but do not have the skill or talent or the creative specialty to take it further. Art can be described as ‘The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power’ (google.com date unknown). Where as advertising is described as ‘The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services’ (google.com date unknown).
Both clearly have different meanings however it is difficult to give a black or white answer to this question, as it can always be debated further in accordance to different people beliefs and thoughts.
3. Chalayan’s film Absent Presence screened at the 2005 Venice Biennale. It features the process of caring for worn clothes, and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. This work has been influenced by many different art movements; can you think of some, and in what ways they might have inspired Chalayan’s approach?
There are many movements that Chalayan could have been influenced by. However, I think he is definitely embracing the postmodernism ideology as he is going through a very in-depth process using very scientific ideas. Many many artist have always used ‘found’ objects in their works from Andy Warhol’s use of the recycled Campbell soup tin to Dick Frizzel’s use of the iconic New Zealand ‘Mr. 4 Square’ man to Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book paintings.
4. Many of Chalayan’s pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else; for example, sculptor Lone Sigurdsson made some works from Chalayan’s Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now (2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in art it remains unexpected. Work by artists such as Jackson Pollock hold their value in the fact that he personally made the painting. Contrastingly, Andy Warhol’s pop art was largely produced in a New York collective called The Factory, and many of his silk-screened works were produced by assistants. Contemporarily, Damien Hirst doesn’t personally build his vitrines or preserve the sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?
I think the idea for the artwork is most definitely the core idea of the art. For example architecture – the architect designs a building but its is nearly impossible to build a huge freestanding structure alone. This is a very huge topic to discuss, as nowadays there are hundreds of different art forms. As long as the artist has invented the idea, then personally I think it is ok to have other hands help to execute these visions. However in smaller scaled art such as the original paintings on the wall, artists should defiantly do these themselves as they are smaller and often all originals. Therefore making them very intimate and able to hold a higher value, as they are not mass-produced.
Reference list:
(Author unknown (2011) Celebrity Fashion and Runway Styles.)
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