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Published 28/10/02
Rapture: Art's seduction by fashion since
1970
'Rapture' is at the Barbican Gallery from 10 October
to 23 December 2002
Until visiting this exhibition I had, naively
and unconsciously, assumed that contemporary art and fashion were
much the same thing. Damien Hirst, Stella McCartney, Tracey Emin,
Kate Moss, Alexander McQueen — all seemed perfectly interchangeable
in the pages of Hello and OK! and equally at home
on either the art or fashion pages of the broadsheet newspapers.
'Artist', or 'designer' were just sub-categories of the defining
idea of the late 20th century — 'celebrity.'
'Rapture' reminds us that the merging of art and fashion is, in
fact, a fairly recent phenomenon. 'Pre-contemporary' artists were
superior to mere clothes designers; 'fashion' had an unpleasant
whiff — of manufacturing, mass-production and money —
and of pandering to the tastes of the credit card wielding public.
Fashions were transient, disposable. Last year’s clothes were
not just obsolete, they were laughable. Hysteria greeted holiday
snaps from the mid-1970s — very flared flares, orange shirts,
ties that made a kipper look skinny, boots that could have served
the Wermacht — they may have been designed by Yves St. Laurent
but, in retrospect, they were truly, madly, bad.
But designers had fashion on their sides. What’s fashionable
is what’s hot and desirable now. Designers had publicity, glamour,
money and (temporary) adulation — but they craved respect.
Artists were distinctly unfashionable. It was quite honourable
to sell nothing, to starve in your garret and wait for your prices
to rise posthumously. Artists had respect and posterity — but
they craved prosperity.
All this began to change with the turmoil of the late 1960s, when
preconceptions — along with bras and Draft Cards — were
thrown onto the cultural bonfire. Andy Warhol made one of the first
great leaps from fashion to art. He made his fortune as the King
of Madison Avenue women’s shoe advertising and launched himself
into 'Art' with the all the marketing and self-promotion skills
learned in fashion.
The 'collision of these two glamorous and fascinating worlds' —
as described in the press release — probably began with Warhol,
although his work doesn’t feature in the exhibition, he would,
no doubt, be delighted with what it contains: a playful melange
of forms, textures, installations and cross-over ideas in just about
every media.
Some of the collaborations are more successful than others —
but they all have a sense of fun and a genuine attempt to engage
at a more accessible level than the usual esoteric and po-faced
fashion galas or the banality of much contemporary art.
Working in new disciplines and producing work for different audiences
seems to have re-lit the internal spark for many of the artists,
designers, models and photographers. Instead of producing more of
the same they have actually taken up the challenge, and remind us
why some of the YBAs were such a breath of fresh air — before
over-exposure and over-payment staled their infinite variety.
In the entrance stands an ice-sculpture of Kate Moss (wearing an
Alexander McQueen cape) moulded from life by Marc Quinn. Luckily,
the refrigeration seems more reliable than that in Charles Saatchi’s
larder, because Kate’s features and those of her icy clothes
are remarkably crisp.
'Rapture' tries, not entirely successfully, to provide a chronological
interpretation of the collision between art and fashion. From the
early 1970s is a black & white photo-text piece by Victor Burgin,
said to 'criticise the ideology of consumption and fantasy which
fashion conceals'. Perhaps this is intended as an ironic opening
since the rest of the exhibition is a wholehearted, tub-thumping,
all-singing, all-dancing celebration and glorification of conspicuous
consumption — and one small side room is full of shopping bags
from Chanel, DKNY, Agent Provocateur, Versace and other up-market
retailers.
In the 1970s, the revolution in fashion photography brought about
by Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Arthur Elgort also spilled over
into the art photography of Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and others.
In New York, in the 1980s, street styles were spotted, adopted and
re-branded in the works of Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring and the graffiti
artists Kano. T-shirts with slogans and individualised jackets became
art objects. Fabric began to be used as a sculptural medium, here
illustrated by Beverly Semmes’ dresses — vastly oversized,
filling whole rooms. Another fabric artist, Karen Kimmel, will be
'performing' clothing production each Saturday from 2-4pm.
In the 1990s, artists were commissioned to design fashion retail
spaces, the more exclusive of which have come to resemble gallery
spaces — pioneered by the Commes des Garcons shop in New York’s
SoHo.
'Rapture' goes on to highlight recent and real collaborations between
artists and designers, including the 'Vogue' that brought together
Kate Moss, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Sarah
Morris.
The closing section of the exhibition underscores Chris Townsend’s
imaginative curatorial direction of 'Rapture' (unlike the nearby
'LaChapelle' exhibition, which treats bland, celebrity-flattering
portrait photography as though it is a major breakthrough in style).
The theme is 'violence against the fashion object' — E.V. Day’s
'exploding' dress sculpture; Graham Dolphin’s cleverly 'vandalised'
fashion magazine covers; and Izima Kaoru’s staged photographs
of 'murdered models'.
Two fields whose practitioners often take themselves far too seriously
— art and fashion — are well served by this funny, insightful
and iconoclastic exhibition.
Dr Robert Johnston
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