Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Semester 2 - Week 2 - Hussein Chalayan

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) 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?

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I don't see anything challenging about the work 'afterwords' all i can see is a fashion piece that you would usually see on a catwalk or runway, perhaps the challenge is actually what is in the background than what we see at first in the foreground but then why would the front most figure be so dominant and stand out over the rest of the image.

'Burka' shows us the contrast and progression of fashion throughout the years, or the differences of western civilisation and eastern civilisation. It is very contrasting going from the fully gowned female to the completely nude female. It is contemporary art in its own little way bringing more of an arty sense to the fashion world seeing as the line between fashion and art is so very subtle.


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?

Art is art no matter how it is used, if someone has created a piece of art to sell a product it is still art because that art could then inspire others to create work. Everything in the world is created for a reason and purpose. That being said all art is created from a something be it paint, digital art, spray paint, pencil, clothing, it is all art. If an art piece is created and put in a gallery then sold to a person from the public that is the same as creating art for a product. Its still the same concept of someone gaining profit from there 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?

Modern art may have inspired this work considering today's technological advances and how fast it is progressing, this way of creating the work and tracing the original wearers DNA is almost futuristic, this could have inspired Chalayans work.


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. Con temporarily, 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 it is rather ridiculous that an artist can call him self the artist when they have not even created the works them selves, if the artist has given some form of help to the creation other than thinking up the idea then no i don't think is as important for the artist to create all of it themselves, but when they do create the work by them selves it gives us the thought that they have put their sweat and bone into the works adding the sentimental value to the pieces.


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