Week 3- Hussein Chalayan and Post-Modern Fashion

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? (Research some definitions  for these terms.)
I think Chalayan's work is very provocative (especially Burka) but I find the meaning behind the works interesting and certainly it would be viewed differently by people with different cultures than my own. Oxford dictionaries defines the word 'fashion' as "a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour." I think fashion can be considered art and I think art can be considered fashion. I believe that the viewer decides whether or not the piece is art or fashion. Both of Chalayan's work, to me, stand out as being art. This might be because there is a lot of meaning behind both of these works that just can't be found in a normal everyday outfit.

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?
I think the commercial side of it defers from anyone really reading the art properly. For example, Chalayan's The Level Tunnel (2006) 'captures the essence of Level Vodka.' (Chalayan.com). This might make the viewer not really read deeper into the work and they'll just think it's about vodka.

The Level Tunnel (2006)

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?

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 when the art holds so much personal emotional from the artist, that is when it's important for the artist to personally make the piece.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fashion
http://chalayan.com/collection/view/album/id/15
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/