Week 3- 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 Afterwordsand 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.)

In my opinion Chalayan's works are most likely to be displayed for artworks rather than wearing them in public. The 'Burka' piece of work is for Muslim to cover their identity and is part of their religion. In their culture exposure is not acceptable and women had to cover their whole body. 

'Afterwards' the clothes might be uncomfortable too but its very handy in a way like the skirt is used for a table when you leave it on the ground but when you wear it, its kinda heavy because it has a very flat surface.

"Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later, art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful after"---Mona Simpson.  

which means that fashion is rotating its time and will never run out in style. 

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?
                                                 The Level Tunnel ( 2006)

Repose (2006)

In my opinion art can be either be a poduct that can be advertised/ to sell or something exhibited for people to see because it doesn't mean a piece of work is no longer art, for the reason that its sold. His works do relate to nature, from the viewers perspective 'the level tunnel' piece of work gives a message of peace around in the woods and 'repose' gives viewpoint that you're in a plane up high through the clouds. Art has no limitation that makes artists reach any standard they want. Anything that is visually presented is known as art and Chalayan's ideas are mostly performed in that way which makes him unique in that way.

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?

The idea behind this media installation is on identity,geography, genetics, biology and anthropology. Also by the looks of this installation, its theme is based on humanism because of the explanation that is showing the viewers is how people get to find their true identity from a new environment. 
I think the artist Chalayan might be part of inspiration to his works because his films shows what attracts the interest in modern technology and post modern in the society which also seen.

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) andBefore 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?

In my opinion, I personally think how expressing personal emotional expressions are important in every artists works because perhaps shows the artists timeline of lifestyle. For example authors write about their personal experiences and in times they write about their own personal stories but artists express them visually, sometimes it might not be recogniseable but it has a deep story to the piece of work that the artist surely wants the viewers to feel the same way. In one of Jackson Pollocks work 'Lavender mist' it has his boot print, a cigarette, keys ets in to his painting which is connecting himself and the painting to one so when people view his work they can straightly know who and Pollock's personality. 

http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/

http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/ 

http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/
http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2012/ready-to-wear/hussein-chalayan
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fashion 
http://exn.tumblr.com/post/491987881/what-makes-fashion-fashion-pt-1 
http://ilikecatsmorethanpeople.blogspot.co.nz/2010/11/hussein-chalayan-burka-1996.htm  
http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-LEVEL-Tunnel-(Absolut-Vodka-Hussein-Chalayan)/701114