Article 1:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2006

The Politics of Fashion

Kingston

Everyone knows that clothes make the man. From the executive suits that litter Wall Street like the remnants of a ticker-tape parade to the coveralls and work boots worn by construction workers and mechanics, clothes tell the story of who we are and where we're going. Even when the workday is done, what we choose to wear on our own time is still a reflection of our personalities. From the sweat-suit to the wet-suit, our clothes are meant to be not only functional, but forthcoming as well. Clothes tell others what we like, and often, how we spend our time. Sports franchise logos are constantly on display on Main Street America. T-shirts with well known television, film and music icons can be seen almost anywhere. Clothes have something to say, and people are beginning to realize that the responsibility of being a walking billboard requires us to choose wisely.

Now more than ever, politics are entering the realm of fashion. Blatantly political phrases and slogans are becoming more prevalent on the backs of the public than the bumpers of cars. There are even items of clothing that advertise specific candidates or political parties and were actually purchased by someone, somewhere (not obtained as a door prize at a party fundraiser). But what options exist for those who like a little subtlety with their agenda? Enter the merger of socially conscious art and clothing. Less politically charged and infinitely more fashionable, boutique clothiers have created garments that are the realization of the finite balance between the message and the medium. Using art as the instrument of exchange and clothing as the canvas, these pioneers of significancy are providing people with a method of expressing themselves both in figure and in fact. What better way for entrepreneurs to meet the demands of a public that is focused on reflecting a belief in both style and substance.

The human figure has been portrayed in art for centuries. From the anatomically precise sketches of pre-modern Da Vinci and post modern sculpture of Damien Hirst to the telling facial expression and body language of Caravaggio, the human form has been explored and exploited both inside and out. Whether early Pollock or pornography, abstract or offensive, the body has managed to inspire a great body of work. Recently, the human body has been transformed from captive to living canvas, or rather wall space in the gallery of life through the merging of art and fashion.

As the evolution of human consciousness becomes more ingrained in contemporary art, individual tastes in esthetics often take a backseat to the message that is being conveyed. While one is no less important than the other in achieving a sense of balance, this is especially true where art and fashion intertwine. By it's very nature, fashion is only as merited as the function it serves. If something meets the criteria of being "in fashion", it reflects the prevailing style of the day. A out of date fedora is still an out of date fedora whether it says, "Von Dutch", "Cleveland Indians" or nothing at all. But what happens after these standards have been realized? Is there still room for exposition?

Currently, there are few designers in the market who are able to combine the relevancy of contemporary art and designer fashion, though public demand is high. While certain segments of the population consider art as an observation of life, others see it as a source for depicting the merits of positive social change. Regardless of which view, if any, one subscribes to, the clothiers who manage to merge the messages of art into their garments and do so not at the expense of fashion will likely enjoy a great deal of success.

Art can be a means of reconstructing experiences, communicating emotions or echoing the sentiments of individuals or the masses. From the ancient to the modern, artistic works have run the table from simple observations on life to biting social commentary. The growing segment of contemporary artists who bravely showcase their displeasure with the current state of affairs using creation as an inspiration for positive social change are turning up in the strangest of places, even the world of fashion.

While the fashion industry is often viewed as an institution of pretentiousness, demand is still the driving force behind the successes and failures of it's resident elite. Just as consumability regularly forces the hand of design, or rather post runway re-design, growing discontentment and the desire to express the need for a higher social conscience is driving the union between revolutionary art and clothing.

The fashion world is not unlike the music industry, where most are willingly force fed the flavor du jour while a much smaller segment of others will seek out what suits their individual tastes. Shopping mall entrenched retailers are the "contemporary hits" formatted radio stations of the fashion world, where the top ten play list is decided on long before anyone has a chance to consider the merit of the work for themselves. Individualism in society is testing the boundaries of this formula and the effect can be seen in the increased demand for apparel that not only separates itself esthetically, but progressively as well. As more segments of society begin to understand the power of clothing as a mechanism of expression, the natural merger between avant-garde art and fashion will continue to grow. With a great multitude of artists continuing to communicate the need for changes in the way we view ourselves, our relationships with each other and the environment we live in, it seems only natural that the canvas of the human body is next in line as the foremost bearer of this message.

Fashion has enjoyed, and often later lamented, it's synergistic bond with the art world over the last century. From the Cubist motifs of Art Deco era dress to the Minimalist expression that exposed itself in clothing two decades after the movement ended, art and fashion have proven themselves to be less strange bedfellows and more passionate lovers who occasionally don't get along. Whether art or fashion serves as the catalyst is of note, as fashion driven by art is almost always inspired while the alternative brings to mind the late 70's/early 80's Patrick Nagel atrocities which still somehow manage to find wall space in the instant time warp of style deprived neighborhood hair salons everywhere.

Enter the modern era, where art defies the conventions of labeling and boundaries have been distorted to the brink of extinction. What fashion borrows from art today is anything but derivative and often direct. As the art world has expanded, so has the fashion industry. The inclusion of avant garde art into the realm of acceptability as a fashion influence has nothing to do with consumerism and everything to do with the demand for personalization of the elements that the art itself is comprised of. From social commentary to the current political landscape, passions expressed in art are finding their way into the wardrobes of the disenfranchised. What was once born in the back of the mind and realized in an artistic medium can now be worn on the back of a shirt. Never before have options for self expression been so poignant, piercing and available.

Fashion itself has served as a canvas of purpose for thousands of years. From the finely gilded armor of crusaders long deceased to the red or blue handkerchiefs that indicate gang affiliation today, fashion has expressed every sentiment known to man, yet none so convincingly as conflict. Perhaps the expressions against complacency that are evident in art are making their way into the world of fashion in preparation for another conflict of sorts, one in which individuals are railing against the societal injustices and political malfeasance of the day.

Article 2:

E.V. Day with William Corbett

by William Corbett

E.V. Day is a New York-based installation artist and sculptor whose work explores themes of feminism and sexuality, while reflecting upon popular culture. Day received herMFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 1995, and she began her dynamic Exploding Couture series in 1999. Day’s work in paper, created during a Dieu Donné Lab Grant residency in 2008, employs an innovative technique of embossing pigmented fishnet stockings and hardware into thick casting paper pulp. Her work was on display at the Dieu Donné exhibition space from October 15th to November 25, 2009. Day is represented by Deitch Projects.

To usher in the 2009-2010 season of the New York City Opera, Day created a site-specific installation of her sculptural work, made from a selection of vintage City Opera costumes and suspended overhead in exuberant simulated motion. This installation, first on view from November 5 to 22, will reopen from March 18 to April 18, 2009 at the City Opera’s David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York.

Day discussed her recent work and artistic process with poet and critic William Corbett at Dieu Donné Papermill in New York on November 3. Mr. Corbett is Writer-in-Residence at MIT, an editor of Pressed Wafer, and lives in Boston's South End.

E.V. Day: I went to Hampshire College [in Amherst, Massachusetts]. I really liked it because it was significantly less conventional than my education in Connecticut. It’s a liberal arts college with requirements, but ultimately you create your own major and do a final thesis project as in a graduate program. I loved my educational experience there because I was guided by my interests, and felt like the quality of the results mattered not the grade. The most challenging part was convincing your committee of professors that you were ready to graduate. Some people are born talkers and they can talk their way out of or into anything, but that is a fact of life. Anyway wanted to go to Hampshire because I knew I did not want to go to an “art” school, but I knew I wanted to study art and many other subjects, which Hampshire is known for as an interdisciplinary schoolWilliam Corbett: You were born in New York but raised in Connecticut. Where did you go to school?

Bill: So you thought of yourself as perhaps an artist?

E.V.: Perhaps an artist. I knew I wanted to get a real education first and then have something to make art about. This residency at Dieu Donné has been sort of like my experience with school—I wanted to try everything, learn new techniques but wasn’t sure what I wanted the work to be and I couldn’t imagine what it would look like. It was a leap of faith, you gotta go with your instincts and pray it doesn’t come out looking like a cardboard egg carton! The really exciting thing about this residency is that I knew whatever I did end up with would be new. I had never thought about working with paper pulp, its not so predictable because there are so many options and you can really get your hands into it, and also, it’s not something you can practice at home. You move in, you learn some basics, like making sheets of paper and then you ask questions: “What would happen if…? What do you think about this? Let’s try this.” Images come to my mind in three dimensions. In the end, I was able to compress my 3D images into 2D form, but it’s still three-dimensional work to me—just flattened and compressed in tension.

Rail: I want to find out what your major was at Hampshire. What did you create for yourself?

Rail: Then you went to Yale for graduate school. What did you expect to happen there?

E.V.: I ended up concentrating in fine arts and art history! I did enjoy my science lab classes

E.V.: I was at Yale from 1993 to 1995. I was living in Los Angeles when I applied, and I didn’t want to move back east. I really love Los Angeles, but I decided to go to Yale, and I’ve been here on the east coast ever since.

Rail: Then you came directly to New York City?

E.V.: I did. I lived near the Gowanus Canal. Now it’s a kind of hot area with lots of artists. Back then…mmm…I can still smell the canal…putrid metallic….

Rail: You had a working studio?

E.V.: I had an illegal live-work space, with three other artists. It was huge and fabulous and the most inexpensive studio I’ve ever had. It’s not like that anymore…We took over the space mostly for our studios and carved out a bathroom with a shower, ran a gas line for hot water, built another story and staircase for the bedrooms. The ceilings were 22-26 feet high.
Bill: What were you working on when you were in the Gowanus studio?

E.V.: My grad thesis show was a series of dissected wetsuits that I thought of as deconstructed superheroes. The wetsuits were suspended in open vitrines with stainless steel wire. Ironically I started working on smaller things in my huge studio. I started making drawings based on the floor plans of Hugh Hefner’s private jet, that ultimately became a blueprint series.

Rail: When you say small…

E.V.: Actual blueprint drawings, 18 × 24 inches. I was playing with the presumptuous language of architecture so they appeared to be documents with scaled instructions one could build from. Thinking big, but in plan view. The original floor plans of the 60’s jet are wonderfully curvaceous and I repeated the interior elements for each successive drawing so each one became progressively larger and resembled animated cell growth gone out of control. I wanted to depict experiential fantasy space. Space you could imagine walking through.

Rail: Did you have a day job at the same time?

E.V.: Well, at this fabulous Gowanus studio, our landlord was also an architect who had a business selling industrial flooring products and I helped him a bit in his office and was freelancing for artists, galleries, building crates etc., and about a year later got interested in commercial art direction. I got gigs doing set dressing, building or sourcing props through friends who were already established. I worked on productions at many different levels of budgets, but even the lowest paying gig paid more than freelancing did for an artist or gallery, at least at my level of experience. I really loved the work. I loved working with crews, the team effort, and the content of many of the commercials was so banal that it made my art ideas seem important! After you’ve spent a day on a commercial set watching soap stars say “Daytime TV” over and over and over the value of a pursuit in art shoots into high relief. The commercial work fueled my artwork in many ways. But basically it paid my rent and more. I liked the constant problem solving of making things, and it gave me confidence to risk making art from bad ideas, or the clichés and tropes I work with now.

Rail: For anyone who reads about your work, fashion and couture comes up. And now, for your current show at the New York City Opera in Lincoln Center, costume comes up. What is your definition of fashion?

E.V.: Fashion is sort of a blanket word that covers the idea of trend. It doesn’t really connect with me as a term to describe my work, but its used loosely to refer to styles of clothing. If you look at this [indicating fishnet material stretched on a frame], you can see that this is basically a stripper’s bodysuit. There are holes where her breasts would be revealed, and then the rest of the material is wrapped around her. This work is about the action of the body and my interest in architecture. But is this fashion? I suppose there is an 80’s reference to fashion, but these fishnet body suits are still widely available. For my work, I pick clothing that appeals to me, that has potential to translate ideas through its inherent structure about releasing gravity, ecstasy, and transformation of the image of the body and ends up having emotional impact.
To me, this fishnet body suit is an architectural skin stretched over a women’s body that visually enhances her physical architecture. It’s something that I don’t remember from growing up in Connecticut, where you were expected to select clothes that were socially appropriate. This was always difficult for me as far as I can remember. I never felt proud wearing something appropriate, I felt invisible. Those rules just did not compute with me, and I guess that’s what stuck—and now I’m here with the fishnet bodysuits. I find it fascinating to appreciate the way things are made for the female body and to talk about one’s experience and energy when wearing garments designed for expression. So in general my work is not so much about trend or fashion, but the potential of form.

But, in 2001, I made an installation piece called G-Force, with two hundred thongs stretched out as if flying across the Whitney-curated space at Philip Morris/Altria in New York. This piece came directly out of a trend in fashion popularized by Britney Spears—Hi-rise thong exposed over the hip with the low-rise jeans. One hot New York summer it looked like every woman’s underwear was flying out of their pants on the street. I thought that was quite interesting-and hilarious, simultaneously sci-fi and Brazilian.

Rail: G-Force: of course, like g-string. What do you think about couture?

E.V.: Couture is an art form. It’s a one of a kind garment, like a sculpture. It is a unique singular expression by a designer. That idea of couture comes up because it’s unique, specific in style and is carefully constructed. Its the highest level of the craft and then it is different from the craft of costume, which is more like constructing a building or a prop to be performed in. The most interesting thing for me lately has been working with retired pieces in the costume archive at the New York City Opera. I relate these pieces to couture, because costumes are constructed like I’ve described. They are the ultimate in garments; they’re built to last through many performances, maybe for years. I was just at the City Opera today, and they’re refurbishing all of these incredibly intricate costumes for the Nutcracker ballet. All of those tutus—it’s very much about sculpture and how it moves and shows up on the stage from far away as well as with the body of the performer.
The costume can say more than the character at first glance and gives context. When you see a woman wearing a fishnet bodysuit, it’s not about what she’s talking to you about. The fishnet bodysuit is louder than her words... When you see a character in an opera, you don’t really know what the actor looks like, but you know what the role stands for because the costume says it.

Rail: So you’d call a fishnet bodysuit a costume.

E.V.: Yes. Like a superhero’s.

Rail: You associate fishnet stockings with Spider-Man, and you’ve said that you would like to have that sort of web. Were you interested in comics as a kid?

E.V.: No. I think that interest came out of my experience at graduate school, when I was searching for images of women who were independent and powerful and who had their own language. Superheroes are characters that are powerful. They have a mission and have their own particular language and superpower. I was looking for a female version that was a positive character or archetype. There aren’t a lot of women characters that are actually viable except for Wonder Woman.

Rail: Well, it’s bullets and bracelets—my favorite game.

E.V.: She can flex. And she has the golden lasso, “the Lasso of Truth”, which is the ultimate superpower. If only the United Nations had the golden lasso! Wonder Woman gently lassos a subject and nicely and asks, “So did you really tell that person this?” She doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s just about the truth. Tell me the truth: what did you say? What did you do? What did you mean? To me, that’s a great superhero to look up to.

Spider-Man is another superhero that I really like. I think there is also a Spider-Woman or a Spider-Girl. But, you know, if I was hanging off a cliff and Spider-Woman showed up, it would feel dubious. Right?

Rail: “Why are you here?”

E.V.: If Spider-Man comes along, you know you’re going to be okay! But if Spider-Woman comes instead, you wonder, what am I going to have to do for you later? I think that’s still part of the question with images of powerful women—whether that power is reliable and trustworthy and strong. It’s funny, because there are so many iconic images of women taking care of babies, but somehow it doesn’t translate into superheroes. But back to the fishnet stockings…

Rail: Here is the fishnet, stretched out on a frame. What did you do with it? Did this go in the big Crusher [paper press]? How does this get involved with the paper you’re making?

Rail: Parenthetically, the “web” is a loaded image now, because of the Internet. When you walked into this space, did you have that in mind?E.V.: We started with smaller samples of fishnet. I didn’t originally imagine doing a whole body. I started with fishnet stockings to see what would happen. I was thinking about Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, liking the anti-gravity things that Spider-Man can do, and looking at a lot of imagery of his spider webs shooting around. When you stretch the fishnet stocking, it kind of looks like those webs. I really like the potential energy of the webs in motion. It’s about transportation and movement; it’s more about travel than about being trapped in the spider web for me.

E.V.: Not at all. At first, I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to figure out something to do. I started with elastic bands and snapped them.

Rail: Rubber bands?

E.V.: The elastic bands that are on a gift box. I covered them with pure pigment and snapped them into the paper; I wanted to capture that motion energy of the snap. This is what makes papermaking different than making prints. Here, you’re working with pure pulp, which is fiber soaked in water, and the pulp entirely absorbs whatever you put into it. You don’t get skid marks on the surface. The pigment gets soaked in and embedded into the paper. Sometimes we’d press the paper first and then put pigment on top. And then I got more adventurous, using the whole stocking and trying to completely embed that in the paper.

Rail: What’s the atmosphere like in the papermaking studio? Noisy? A lot of water? How did you do it, physically?

E.V.: Well, I would come in and talk to Paul, who is the master of the art of paper pulp. He is an incredible resource and facilitator of ideas. I would ask, will this work? And he’d say, “Well, this is probably what’s going to happen if you do that, but you can try this…” And we would try it together. We went through so much experimentation, which is what was so great.

Rail: Had you ever worked with these kinds of machines before?

E.V.: No, but I was definitely excited to work with “the Crusher” and “the Baby Crusher”. You’ve got so much pressure on this paper, and it’s squeezing the water out, and you watch your pigment run like a pool of ink down to the drains in the floor. And you think, “We’re getting a really good color!” But you wouldn’t know; maybe it had all been squeezed out! It’s a similar kind of experience to making photography, back when you used to develop in a darkroom. You wait around the Crusher, thinking, “What are we gonna see?”

Rail: What do you do if it doesn’t work out?

E.V.: That was a cool part of the experience. Suddenly you’re engaging in this critique: “Well, this is getting a good image here. What if we try a little more pigment?” Once we had an idea of what we wanted, it became this scientific baking procedure, in a way: how long to leave it in the oven, a little salt, a little pepper. I wanted this fishnet to show great definition, but I also wanted the ink to be flowing out. I wanted to create “Shazam”, a superhero-like costume transformation busting out of the compression. I came to that idea through all of the experimentation we did at the beginning. Sometimes the ink would take so that there was a visual sense of the pressure and the flow of the pigment, but you didn’t have crisp definition. And then sometimes the fishnet would be super crisp. So we wondered, what if we got that definition with this flow of the pigment? We started to create a language and to create other goals within it

Rail: Has this work changed the way you think about paper? For instance, did you buy new drawing paper? Have you become more interested in different kinds of papers?

E.V.: I am certainly more interested in paper now, but what’s neat about this project is that the paper is the object, like a sculpture. So I can’t just buy paper and expect it to do what we did here. To me, this work is still sculpture, just compressed instead of exploded. It’s a total object. It’s not about an image on a surface; you can cut up that paper like a cake, and the dyes go all the way through the material. It’s the object of an action, and there’s only one. You can somewhat edition the pieces I made, but each one is still unique. The similarities lie in the measurements and the pressure and the temperature. You can edition loaves of bread, but really each one is a little bit different. There is a level of nuance happening here that just doesn’t occur in something like lithography.

Rail: How many hours did you spend in each session—how many hours in each day?

E.V.: It’s a full day—nine to five, or ten to six. I always look forward to my days here in the studio. When I am here for a day, there aren’t any distractions; we’re fully focused on this one special process that you can’t do anywhere else. I also have the assistance of Paul and Cat [Cox], and I can look through their archive of past experiments with pigments and pressures. It’s a very specialized process, and yet it’s still paper—and printmaking, in a certain way. The beauty is in wanting to pull out what can happen from this experiment.

Rail: What were your hands doing while you were working? Were you wearing gloves? Were you touching the materials all the time, or were you sitting there and watching?

E.V.: Generally, I don’t think about wearing gloves, it is a fairly non-toxic environment and your hands are a big part of the process. But if you are working with a lot of pigment it is good to wear gloves so you can take them off and not risk distributing the blue powder pigment on everything you touch. But once your boots are on, your gloves are on, and the music is playing, you’re thinking about what’s next. What are the ways of attaching these things? What kind of paper pulp might give us this effect or that effect? It’s all about experimentation. Your mind is so alive when you’re in the studio. One experiment drives the next experiment. And Steve [Orlando] and Cat Cox are around, so you have this whole world of people here, doing many other things and working on other projects. It’s a creative hive.

Rail: I assume this experience had resonance for you. How did it inform your more sculptural work with costumes? What is the connection between your work in this room and what you’ve gone on to do?

E.V.: This residency is still very much in my mind. I’m hoping to come back and do more work here. There is a particular feeling that I get when making three-dimensional work: I feel potential motion and a sense of space for the future. Making these “monotypes” was a very similar sculptural experience. While I was here, I kept thinking about costumes that have lots of rich decoration and seams. They’re so constructed. I kept thinking, what would happen if I put a costume like that in the Crusher and tried to use it as a relief? And I was thinking that there might be other things besides costumes that would be interesting to use.

Rail: I understand that concurrently with the installation at the New York City Opera, you’re going to take on some commissions involving prom dresses and wedding dresses?

E.V.: I think it’s a project for the daring. If someone’s willing to sacrifice their garment, and there’s a story there, then I’m interested in talking about it. There has to be some kind of relationship or narrative about the garment that’s larger than just that person; something about the dress has to resonate for me. I’ve been offering to do this project for a couple of years, but nobody has followed through yet. People are so attached to a wedding dress or a prom dress, and I understand that. I like to pick my own garments for my work, in general, but I’d be interested in someone who really said, “Take this.” I’m curious to collaborate if there’s a story—and if they want to put a dress in the Crusher, that would be interesting.

Article 3:

Thursday, 15 November 2012

The Scary Beautiful Shoes

The pictures above are images of a model wearing the Scary Beautiful Shoes created by artist Leanie van der Vyver and Dutch shoe designer René van den Berg, and serve as a commentary on today's impossible standards of beauty. The giant heels look as though they are placed backwards on the models foot, so that her feet are pointing straight down the back of the shoes, with the shin leaning against the front part of the heel (which appears as if it could be the back) end of the design in order to keep balance and create a distorted, awkward look when the model "walks" in the heels. As Leanie stated: "My frustration with my own inability to overcome these feelings of inadequacy was what brought 'Scary Beautiful' into fruition. The shoes formed part of my graduation project that was a result of my thesis. The conclusion of my thesis investigation was that people are not satisfied with what they look like, and that perfection, according to the beauty and fashion standards, has reached a climax. Humans are playing God by physically and metaphorically perfecting themselves. Beauty is currently at an all time climax, allowing this project to explore what lies beyond perfection. Scary Beautiful challenges current beauty ideals by inflicting an unexpected new beauty standard." This quote from the “inventor” of Scary Beautiful Shoes describes clearly what the real intention behind these shoes are; and in this way we are able to relate more to the designers and their product, and understand what it is that the designers and inventors were aiming for when creating them. I personally find Leanie's concept behind these shoes very interesting and fascinating. Though I think the shoes are incredibly unattractive and bizarre, not only in its overall appearance but also in the way the person walking in them appears; I think Leanie's meaning behind it is very unique, interesting and fascinating. Most fashion companies try their best in order to please their costumers and keep up with the modern day fashion standards, whereby the Scary Beautiful Shoes do the complete opposite in trying to show how women are portrayed in the fashion industry and how people are never satisfied with how women look, and they have to keep up with the impossible standards of modern day beauty.

As talked about and discussed in numerous of the videos watched in class about gender inequality and the portrayal of women in the modern day media (Killing Me Softly documentary); these shoes portray some of the aspects presented, as the models wearing them appear in a distorted, awkward, vulnerable way, as is done in the countless other advertisements around the world. I believe however, that it is part of the message which the artists wanted to present, as they show how women are portrayed in the media are shown and presented as vulnerable, weak and submissive through the presentation of these shoes and how the models wearing them look and act in them.

Before fully reading the article on the Scary Beautiful Shoes; I believed that these shoes and the way the model walked in them was simply another way of presenting women in the media; though through a more obvious and more visible way. However; after reading about Leanie's true meaning and intention behind the shoes; I was able to grasp the actual meaning behind them and how they portray the women. The way the women are meant to appear in the shoes is done purposely in order to prove and show how women are made to look like in the media. However; the artists who created these shoes used an obvious and extreme way to show it in order to fully bring out the message behind them, and make the message clear to the viewers the moment they see the women walk in them.

Throughout the media, women are made to appear submissive, vulnerable, weak and small in comparison to men, who are displayed as tough, strong, and superior to the women. This is evident through the body placements of the women, the way they touch objects, and where they place their hands. Women are often seen hiding their faces behind their hands, touching objects very gently, delicately and carefully, hiding behind a man as if she is searching for some form of protection from her surroundings, leaning or bending over awkwardly, etc. The shoes are made in such a way that some of these aspects are evident when a woman is seen walking in these shoes. When the model walks in the shoes she is made to appear awkward as she moves forward at an extremely slow and painful pace. She appears submissive as she bends awkwardly in a sideways squatting position in order to move forward and vulnerable as she is totally oblivious to her surroundings and the pain inflicted upon her by the shoes. Anybody at any moment could do her harm as long as she is in those shoes; seeing as she cannot move properly or normally in them.

In conclusion; this portrayal of vulnerability, submissiveness and need for perfection shown in women throughout advertisement and the world today; is shown in a distorted way through these shoes, in order to send a message out to the public about what is happening with women in the modern day media. The artist’s passion and anger towards the matter is shown clearly and distinctively through these shoes, and I personally am very impressed with the actual meaning and message behind this invention. Though the shoes may appear unattractive; the artists have done a splendid job at showing how women are portrayed in the media, and how sick it is in reality, through the Scary Beautiful Shoes.

Intro Article:

There is a lot you can learn about a person’s clothes: Who they are. What they do. Clothing is a way to express yourself, similarly so does art. So it’s not surprising that they would go hand in hand in this art exhibition, Moral Fiber. The art of clothes can be used as a tool to convey a message or inform others. Specifically this art will engage viewers in a conversation about different social issues through the medium of clothes and art.

The issues commentated on in the exhibition include the ideal beauty for women, seen in Thinner Than You which satirizes the ideal weight for women’s beauty with a dress that no human could possibly fit into, and Scary Beautiful, the high heel shoes and performance art that force the wearer to manipulate their natural gait to an unnerving, unnatural movement, just as people are playing god changing their appearance in aspiration for what they perceive as perfection in beauty. Lamp Girls by Marianne Maric is a wearable lamp dress that compares women to an object, like how they are portrayed in the media. Cole’s shoe mandalas like the Difference between Black and White deal with race and segregation. E. V. Day’s exploding couture dress collection collide feminine clothes with the typically masculine features of action and explosions. She also applies this to her lingerie artworks such as G-Force, where the feminine apparel becomes a dangerous fighter jet. Susan Cutt’s Fairy Tale Dress is a fragile delicate dress that has to do with traditional feminine traits. And finally Lang’s Pasta dress has to do with the modern dieting culture.

Although viewers will be looking at the clothes as the art, it is the person who would be wearing them that is the important part of the artwork. Moral Fiber. Societal issues through the medium we all know so well in our modern culture. Clothes.

Scary Beautiful, Leanie van der Vyver and Rene van den Berg, sculpture and performance art, October 9, 2012

Thinner Than You. Artist: Maureen Connor. Date: 1990. Medium: Stainless steel and cloth/Sculpture. Size: 60” x 7 ½”.

Willie Cole; The Difference between Black and White, 2005-2006

Shoes, wood, metal, screws, staples; Diameter 85 inches, depth 16 inches;

Bride Fight, 2006, E. V. Day

Two vintage white silk bridal gowns,
two tiaras, two veils, two pairs of shoes,
two pairs of gloves,hairpiece, garters, panties,
faux-pearl necklace, monofilament,
fishing tackle and turnbuckles.
Approx. 11 1/2 x 18 x 16 feet