Week 3- Hussein Chalayan and Post-Modern Fashion

Hussein Chalayan

Chalayan is an artist and designer, working in film, dress and installation art. Research Chalayan’s work, and then consider these questions in some thoughtful reflective writing.

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.)

Hussein Chalayan, Burka (1996) (99

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                                                                 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?

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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?

http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html 
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/

Week 2 - Post-Modernism - Ai Weiwei and Banksy.

 Post-Modernism

This week's ALVC tutorial covers Post-Modernism. Use the ALVC texts and definitions from the internet to define the term and answer the following questions;

1. Define Post-Modernism using 8-10 bullet points that include short quotes.

2. Use a quote by Witcombe (2000) to define the Post-Modern artist.(page 24)

3. Use the table on pages 47 and 48 in your ALVC handbook to summarize the list of the features of Post-Modernity.

Use this summary to answer the next two questions.

4. Research Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994)
in order to say what features of the work could be considered Post-Modern.

'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994), Ai Weiwei

 

Ai Weiwei dropping a Han Dynast Urn.

6. Research British artist Banksy's street art, and analyze the following two works by the artist
to discuss how each work can be defined at Post-Modern.(Use your list from question 3.)

'Flower Riot', Banksy

Los Angeles (2008), Banksy

http://theworldsbestever.com/2008/02/new_banksy_pieces_surface_in_l.php

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/03/11/how-china-conquered-the-art-world.html