Hussein 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) andBurka (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, Burka, 1996
Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 20002. Chalayan has strong links to industry. Pieces like TheLevel 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?
Burka for me, persue' a path of lost tradtion and culture for these women. Its degrading in some way because i find that in my own culture we share a similar hope that what we are doing to ourselves and our beliefs are becoming more mainstream (non-traditional).
ReplyDelete"Afterwords" is something I dont see every day an instant furniture removeable clothing brand of some sort. Its interesting to me to see how things have evolved and how people like Hussein Chalayan have changed the way we view the struggles of people in countries that actually live their days being forced out of thier homes and into another.
With the likes of fashion and art I believe that fashion has to be comfortable, affordable and attractive..... Afterwards has that attractiveness about it, dont know whether its affordable or comfortable but definately falls under fashion.As for "Burka",in a sense that when we see women wearing these, without any knowledge as to why they wear this piece then fashion art?, yes definately because "messages" of why we view "burka" the way we do? is what arts all about our own personal views.
The impact of these so called "stunts" would not change the nature of an artist' work if he/or she decides to go against what people thought them out to be, then tuff luck change is inevitable, and in the sense of art, art is just one of the many that have been changing for hundreds of years, to this day even.But is it still art if it is used to sell products? Is it not that art is a product on it self?, artist create,sell and buy exactly the same way these commercial businesses?
I feel strongly about making your own piece of art because you then share a connection with the piece, you have the desire to make not only you but the viewer feel something truley amazing.
i agree with your statement about fashion being attractive, but not all fashion is affordable i think that afterwords has that look of a expensive peice that you world see on the runway - this is why in my opinion it is fashion
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