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?
Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000
Hussein Chalayan, Burka, 1996
Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000 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?
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?
Hussein Chalayan, still from Absent Presence, 2005 (motion picture)
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?
(1)
Honestly in my opinion I think they are artworks not fashion, but what is fashion and what is art? Well lets find out the definitions:
Art:
"The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance" (Dictionary.com)
Fashion:
"Conventional usage in dress, manners, etc., especially of polite society, or conformity to it"
So Art is an expression of an opinion of idea and Fashion is Conventional polite dress wear. So this backs up my opinion of her works as artworks not fashion as they are not conventional polite dress wear neither are they socially acceptable.
(2)
I think that the influence of the companies gives her a focus and a direction for her work that would otherwise be different from her own and if theres one thing that I've learnt this year is to be different and experiment with different ideas and designs. So I see this as a positive thing since the resulting works are amazing and still count as works of art.
(3)
I think the Enlightenment would've definitely influenced this artwork. The enlightenment is all about science answering some of the, at the time, difficult questions and scientific discovery. It also had a influence on art at the time as this caused art to branch away from the norm and create new things.
How does enlightenment influence this artwork? well this artwork involves finding the "roots" of the previous wearers through a scientific way, this using science in an artistic way is influenced by the Enlightenment.
(4)
In some cases, like Damein Hirsts, creating the actual work by yourself isn't as important as the idea behind it because the reason for the artwork being so famous isn't just because it's a large shark in a preserve tank, but more importantly it's the idea that creates a train of thought and intellectual stimulation that counts more in the long run. Artwork can age, break, warp and be destroyed but the ideas behind them are what last through the ages. In fact some of the most famous artworks are quite simple physically but the ideas behind them can be quite complex. But of course some artworks which do focus on the physical, especially artworks such as paintings, are better appreciated if the actual creator did the work themselves.
References:
Dictionary.com:
I strongly agree with you on saying that his work is art not fashion as fashion is something that is accepted within society as the nude pieces would not be accpeted, as fashion is suppose to portray something someone would wear out and about or even for a celebrity. I like how you said she experiments alot and makes her original work contrast with other work she has done such as the ads.
ReplyDelete"the companies gives her a focus and a direction for her work that would otherwise be different from her own". First of all Hussein is a he, haha! but also I agree with this statement in some ways but also would like to add to it. I agree with the fact that the companies used and supporting Hussein to make their products into art but also to sell them in a commercial way does give him a good direction for his work in the way that it puts his name out there into a more known industry and shows a broader way of him showing his creative talents and making them into an enterprise. I give him credit for his ability to go beyond the normality of advertising a product and going to the extent of making these projects so different for an example, the sensory experience in the level vodka tunnel, being able to get all the senses possible with the vodka through smell, sound and taste.
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