Skip to main content
Read page text
page 90
inform 88 01 02 03 Face of Fashion National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, 15 February-28 May 2007, T: 020 7312 2463 www.npg.org.uk a pubic triangle (Kate Moss trussed up with a silken cord). In contrast Corinne Day prefers the ordinary and everyday: stealing candid moments from her sitters. The originator of heroin chic, after that infamous 1993 Vogue fly specimens pinned against a white wall, or trapped in space, their body movements restricted. But both Penn and Avedon were masters of psychological revelation. Can fashion portraiture really teach us anything new about ourselves (apart from the fact that we would never fit these size-zero clothes)? Interestingly it is Steve Klein's campy, theatrical tableaux that seem to reveal the skull beneath the skin. All portraits are lies, he insists. Klein never tells subjects what to wear or how to pose. Instead they dream up a 'performance' together. In 'Domestic Bliss', Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie 'impersonate' the perfect 1950s American family. She lolls on the bed in a negligee, he is watering the garden. It's sexy and iconic, and yet something is not right with the image: the couple's relationship is visibly fraying. You could read a great deal into these photos: except the sequence was Pitt's own idea, and shot on the set of the film, Mr & Mrs Smith. What's fascinating about Face of Fashion is how little interest the photographers seem to have in clothes. Yes Klein chooses his beading, drapery and ripped tights with care, and Sorrenti 'props' his models with chic dresses and suits, but there is nothing to make you swoon. Here skin, not cloth, is the truly voluptuous material. Because this is a show all about the face. Day's extraordinarily raw black and white headshots of Kate Moss have already caused a sensation. Shot close-up, sans makeup, they break every style rule. At 33, Moss is too old, seemingly too human with her wonky nose and imperfect teeth. And yet, as this show proves, no one embodies the brilliance - the sheer bloody insouciance - of great fashion better than she does. ••• Liz Hoggard 01 Natalia, Paris 2002, Paolo Riversi, Egoiste No.15 02 Kate’s Flat, 1993, Corinne Day, British Vogue 03 Doll, London 2006, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott 'But you can't see the clothes!' What fashion virgins we were back in the 1980s, when the Face and I-D pioneered their edgy, new brand of portraiture. We poured over blurry pictures of hems and sleeves, trying to work out who the designer was, and gasped at the dishevelled-looking models (would anyone actually buy clothes that made you look like a heroin addict or a rent boy?). Twenty years on, we're all far more fashion-literate. And what's significant is how edgy portraiture has spilled over from the editorial in magazines to the adverts themselves. Even the major couture houses are happy to rough up their models, to show smeared lipstick and greasy hair, in the name of authenticity – and of course to stoke the twin fires of sex and consumption. Twenty-first century fashion is a game played out by god-like photographers and stylists, with a cast of thousands just like any Hollywood film. And the relationship between snapper and model is the most intriguing of all: celebratory, but exploitative, intimate but utterly commercial which begs the question: who is selling what to whom? Billed as the first exhibition to celebrate the innovation and diversity of current fashion portraiture, Face of Fashion takes five A-list fashion photographers off the magazine pages and puts them in the white-walled art gallery. Experts in digital manipulation, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott (who shot the Jennifer Lopez Louis Vuitton ads) shoot with Moss, Day loves her trademark grimy locations, bedsits where sofas, curtains and bedspreads are as important signifiers as the clothes. There's nothing passive about these girls. Gawky and androgynous, they return the viewer's gaze full-on. Paolo Roversi uses traditional studio techniques and stage lighting to create sepia portraits, with a nod to Julia Margaret Cameron. Some images are fragile and unbearably beautiful, others expose the model to ridicule (how could he put a curvy Juliette Binoche in stockings and a shrunken polo neck?). The good news is the show isn't full of supermodels flogging handbags. But just occasionally it feels empty, souless. You long for a portrait photographer like Nan Goldin or a Diane Arbus, who actually has something to say about society. Goldin isn't a complete purist (she has shot for Vogue and W), but she drags real life in kicking and screaming. There is nothing wrong with Hollywood fantasy, per se. Mario Sorrenti subverts Hitchcock's glacial blondes with style – and the show includes a wondrous shot of Catherine Deneuve splayed across the forest in a fur coat just because she felt like it. But one also senses a whiff of hatred for female bodies. Performance artist Shannon Plumb is trussed up for 12 hours, so her skin becomes a map of livid lacerations. And why is Lauren Hutton posed naked and almost deformed, while the male talking heads (Jean-Luc Goddard, Jasper Johns) retain their dignity? Of course the 'sitter as victim' is not a new idea. The show's curator, Susan Bright reminds us that both Irving Penn and Richard Avedon treated their subjects as butter- selvedge.org specialize in glamorous, constructed images of femininity. And yet there's something cold about their work. They are fascinated by woman as doll. Sometimes the only visceral, living detail is an eyebrow (Jennifer Connelly) or a fringe, or © Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott © Paolo Roversi © Corinne Day
page 91
89 inform 04 05 Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting Museum of Arts & Design, New York, T: 212 956 3535 www.madmuseum.org 25 January 17-June Nearby, a video of Dave Cole using giant JCBs to help knit an overblown American flag and a small teddy bear of knitted lead ribbon confirm once and for all that knitting and lace making are far from diminutive or merely deco- rope and shoe laces which references the grid and clamour of mid-town Manhattan and Janet Echelman's handknotted nylon net were both thought provoking additions to the exhibition, but also needed far more space to do these large works justice. Rather than concede that less is more, the goal here seemed to be to inundate the viewer. There were works cleverly tucked away that ran the danger of being missed entirely. I nearly overlooked Shane Waltener's efforts to “engage with an often overlooked area of the museum” (the entrance leading to the little used lift) and in fact did miss a work apparently sited in the museum's gift shop windows. Waltener's white elastic web proved just a little too subtle for the white space, used by museum staff far more than the general public. Surprisingly, few works in the exhibition were garments or related to the body. Liz Collins' “Corporeal Constructions” and Freddie Robins’ “Craft Kills” suit offered exceptions. The Japanese designer Yoshiki Hishinuma is known for garments, but here exhibited a beautiful green textile that felt more like a sculpture than a fashion accessory. The omission of Canadian artist Andrea Vander Kooij was a shame, as knitting and its relationship to the scale of body, as well as the monumental, deserve equal attention. But apart from the quibble of just what defines knitting and lace this exhibition does contain the sort of textiles that formerly named craft museums need to bring to light for the public. Hopefully, the planned move to the renovated 2 Columbus Circle in the Spring of 2008 will In place of the usual stereotypes that plague knitting and lace making, Chief Curator of the Museum of Arts and Design, David Revere McFadden has assembled an exhibition defined by large-scale work and alternative materials. With the exception of Althea Merback's absurdly small knitting, the majority of work on display looms large. More often than not the materials here are other than textile: chocolate, metal, glass, shredded money and video all make an appearance. Strangely, there are few examples of work that interrogates the structure of knitting or lace. This poetic licence permits a vast range of work to be included, but dilutes exploration of the currency knitting, in particular, is currently enjoying. Rather than be pedantic about definitions of lace and knitting, McFadden has selected, along with work that is knitted or made of lace, work that is inspired by knit or lace patterns. Thus Elana Herzog's eerily beautiful deconstruction of a family carpet is allowed in, despite the fact that the carpet is woven. The carpet's pattern makes reference to lace, without being lace itself. Herzog traces portions of this original pattern with the introduction of a distinctly industrial, aggressive material: industrial staples that hold in place the fragmented remains of the textile. Opposite, Cal Lane's steel sculpture “Filigree Car Bombing” of found automobile parts manages to evoke remarkable beauty from materials that do not lend themselves easily to such associations. Rather than lace bobbins or knitting needles, Lane wields an industrial blowtorch to cut patterns into metal. Remnants of the process are sprinkled on the floor in a further lace-like pattern. rative. Safety equipment, in the case of these three, extends far beyond the prerequisite thimble. Plain old beauty, something it seems we have to work very hard to justify these days, is also on display. Piper Shephard's “Lace Meander” is one of many works to suggest the pattern rather than the structure of lace, but is remarkably beautiful either way. Cut by hand using a knife, the long screens speak of the time and patience it takes to knit or assemble lace, but does this through a reductive technique. Anne Wilson's eloquent video work of animated lace fragments brings, along with beauty, a touch of humour. But the decision to site Wilson's work near the exhibition's other video piece by Cat Mazza was unfortunate. Mazza, in contrast to Wilson's sophisticated anthropomorphisms, speaks out against sweatshop labour and the unjust working practices that make up a large portion of the textile industry today. This grave topic is conveyed through a series of interviews in which speakers' faces are concealed by an animated pattern of cross-stitch. This work, and many others, deserved more breathing room than it enjoyed. In fact there is a danger that this exhibition simply includes too much. Liza Collins’ knitted dress with “veins” extending out into the gallery drew the short straw in a dark corner of the upper gallery. Similarly, Sabrina Gashwandtner's interactive work which encouraged participants to sit down and knit alongside her own knitted images of the role knitting has played throughout recent history, seemed unfortunately placed in the corner of the basement level. Sheila Pepe's large installation of Collection of Robert and Tracey Hain Dan Mayers selvedge.org solve many of the display constraints that detracted from the current exhibition. ••• Jessica Hemmings 04 Piper Shephard in her studio 05 Five Shovels, 2005, 180 x 120cm, Cal Lane

Page Text

View plaintext

inform

88

01

02

03

Face of Fashion

National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, 15 February-28 May 2007, T: 020 7312 2463 www.npg.org.uk

a pubic triangle (Kate Moss trussed up with a silken cord). In contrast Corinne Day prefers the ordinary and everyday: stealing candid moments from her sitters. The originator of heroin chic, after that infamous 1993 Vogue

fly specimens pinned against a white wall, or trapped in space, their body movements restricted. But both Penn and Avedon were masters of psychological revelation. Can fashion portraiture really teach us anything new about ourselves (apart from the fact that we would never fit these size-zero clothes)? Interestingly it is Steve Klein's campy, theatrical tableaux that seem to reveal the skull beneath the skin. All portraits are lies, he insists. Klein never tells subjects what to wear or how to pose. Instead they dream up a 'performance' together. In 'Domestic Bliss', Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie 'impersonate' the perfect 1950s American family. She lolls on the bed in a negligee, he is watering the garden. It's sexy and iconic, and yet something is not right with the image: the couple's relationship is visibly fraying. You could read a great deal into these photos: except the sequence was Pitt's own idea, and shot on the set of the film, Mr & Mrs Smith. What's fascinating about Face of Fashion is how little interest the photographers seem to have in clothes. Yes Klein chooses his beading, drapery and ripped tights with care, and Sorrenti 'props' his models with chic dresses and suits, but there is nothing to make you swoon. Here skin, not cloth, is the truly voluptuous material. Because this is a show all about the face. Day's extraordinarily raw black and white headshots of Kate Moss have already caused a sensation. Shot close-up, sans makeup, they break every style rule. At 33, Moss is too old, seemingly too human with her wonky nose and imperfect teeth. And yet, as this show proves, no one embodies the brilliance - the sheer bloody insouciance - of great fashion better than she does. ••• Liz Hoggard 01 Natalia, Paris 2002, Paolo Riversi, Egoiste No.15 02 Kate’s Flat, 1993, Corinne Day, British Vogue 03 Doll, London 2006, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott

'But you can't see the clothes!' What fashion virgins we were back in the 1980s, when the Face and I-D pioneered their edgy, new brand of portraiture. We poured over blurry pictures of hems and sleeves, trying to work out who the designer was, and gasped at the dishevelled-looking models (would anyone actually buy clothes that made you look like a heroin addict or a rent boy?). Twenty years on, we're all far more fashion-literate. And what's significant is how edgy portraiture has spilled over from the editorial in magazines to the adverts themselves. Even the major couture houses are happy to rough up their models, to show smeared lipstick and greasy hair, in the name of authenticity – and of course to stoke the twin fires of sex and consumption. Twenty-first century fashion is a game played out by god-like photographers and stylists, with a cast of thousands just like any Hollywood film. And the relationship between snapper and model is the most intriguing of all: celebratory, but exploitative, intimate but utterly commercial which begs the question: who is selling what to whom? Billed as the first exhibition to celebrate the innovation and diversity of current fashion portraiture, Face of Fashion takes five A-list fashion photographers off the magazine pages and puts them in the white-walled art gallery. Experts in digital manipulation, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott (who shot the Jennifer Lopez Louis Vuitton ads)

shoot with Moss, Day loves her trademark grimy locations, bedsits where sofas, curtains and bedspreads are as important signifiers as the clothes. There's nothing passive about these girls. Gawky and androgynous, they return the viewer's gaze full-on. Paolo Roversi uses traditional studio techniques and stage lighting to create sepia portraits, with a nod to Julia Margaret Cameron. Some images are fragile and unbearably beautiful, others expose the model to ridicule (how could he put a curvy Juliette Binoche in stockings and a shrunken polo neck?). The good news is the show isn't full of supermodels flogging handbags. But just occasionally it feels empty, souless. You long for a portrait photographer like Nan Goldin or a Diane Arbus, who actually has something to say about society. Goldin isn't a complete purist (she has shot for Vogue and W), but she drags real life in kicking and screaming. There is nothing wrong with Hollywood fantasy, per se. Mario Sorrenti subverts Hitchcock's glacial blondes with style – and the show includes a wondrous shot of Catherine Deneuve splayed across the forest in a fur coat just because she felt like it. But one also senses a whiff of hatred for female bodies. Performance artist Shannon Plumb is trussed up for 12 hours, so her skin becomes a map of livid lacerations. And why is Lauren Hutton posed naked and almost deformed, while the male talking heads (Jean-Luc Goddard, Jasper Johns) retain their dignity? Of course the 'sitter as victim' is not a new idea. The show's curator, Susan Bright reminds us that both Irving Penn and Richard Avedon treated their subjects as butter-

selvedge.org

specialize in glamorous, constructed images of femininity. And yet there's something cold about their work. They are fascinated by woman as doll. Sometimes the only visceral, living detail is an eyebrow (Jennifer Connelly) or a fringe, or

© Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott

© Paolo Roversi

© Corinne Day

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content