"Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty"

“Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty”
The Urs Fischer show was very large. The pieces in the show were large and the man power it took to install this very expensive show was very large as well. But the smallest piece of the show was the one that I would choose to best describe the show. It was a lifelike tongue that was supposed to pop out and scare people when someone came near it. While I was there one person screamed and three people couldn't get it to do anything. I noticed that the guard was in charge of coming up to everyone and telling them that the piece needs some time between people to work. This seemed like a glitch on the artists part.
After seeing the kitschy tongue piece I could not help feeling insulted by this”fuck you” piece. The museum wall is sticking its tongue out at everyone who tries to look. As if to laugh at us for trying to see “art” where there isn't any.
I was also confused by the monumental sized mirrored rectangular boxes of everyday images seen from all sides. The mundane still seemed mundane. It made me think back to Andy Warhol. And although they looked different than his work, they were very large and intimidating for that reason, otherwise it was hard for me to think of how they were different. I tried to get a better understanding of them and went to look at the titles but that did not make any sense as well. The titles were not meant to fit in any way with any of the parts of the show. It was interesting to walk through this maze of popular imagery but at that point in the show I started to get the sense that this artist uses scale as a way to convince people that his work is bigger than it really is. A way to intimidate and not much else.
The other parts of the show were confusing as well. The candy colored melting structures that would appear on each floor and the huge metal structures. The large structures had gigantic fingerprints on them which gave the piece a sense of humor and made the viewer feel as if they were in a surreal or fantastical environment. This made me once again question the artists intentions. I could not figure out a way to connect the different parts of the show together ,except that every part of it had some kind of illusion or joke involved.

Historical Fashion at the ICP

 

            Dress Codes is on display as the Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video. It exhibits a wide range of style and fashion throughout many cultures, eras and identities. Within a large range of imagery and ideas, two individual artists stood out because their work echoed themes and concepts of one another as their work hung on opposing walls. Janaina Tschäpe’s Lacrimacorpus and Tanya Marcuse’s Undergarments and Armor were two photographic series that stepped back in time and used former styles of clothing to demonstrate their artistic concepts. They each distorted the appearance of the body through this attire by hiding or accentuate basic natural human curves of the body.

            Tschäpe’s series revolved around a woman whose figure and identity is hidden by a cascade of balloons and attire from the 18^th Century. There is barely an inch of flesh shown as every camera angle hides the truth of her figure and face well under fold of fabric and latex. Her body seems invisible as her skirt is transparent and doesn’t reveal legs under a large hoop skirt. With the garmets covering her skin, her figure is transformed from a woman in the space to a ghost like appearance as she traverses the castle. The balloons that spill down from under her bonnet resemble tears as she wanders the halls of a building that once overlooked a Holocaust concentration camp.

            Marcuse’s imagery is a collection of photographs using undergarments and armor throughout different historical periods as the attire accentuates and hides certain elements of the human form. Through these platinum prints, Marcuse blends and distorts the line between gender identities throughout history. Without these gender roles in fashion, both genders’ fashion echo styles lend to distinct accents within specific features. A man's armor emphasizes his pectoral muscles and upper torso while a woman's corset decreases her stomach to aid in visually increasing her bust line. During different eras, clothing seemed to switch between being women and men's ware in developing strategic armor for men and enhancing visual sex appeal in women.

            These two artists’ works play very well against each other in the spacing of the ICP triennial exhibition. Both use the fashion from a past generation to make historical references and try to bring a new perspective to these past costumes. Although each artist takes a distinct approach to this concept, their work clearly conveys that fashion attire in an integral part of human history. 

"Dress Codes" at the International Center of Photography

The International Center of Photography’s triennial entitled “Dress Codes” is an exploration of how contemporary photographers and videographers view fashion. Although the participants do not belong exclusively to the fashion industry, each of the thirty-four artists explore how clothing can be important in defining people personally and socially.
As a whole, “Dress Codes” addresses a large number of themes and issues including racial stereotyping and cultural identity. One of the most significant themes explored is the notion of creating a persona through what we put on. Both Cindy Sherman’s photographic series from Paris Vogue (2007) and Julika Rudelius’ video Tagged (2003) exemplify persona creation the best. Sherman is widely known for her photographs where she dresses in different guises. In this set, she critiques individuality and the world of high fashion by dressing as similarly clothed socialites. Sherman replicates her own images with only slight variations in order to criticize the fashion industry’s value of being unique. After all, if we can all own the same clothing, how different can these fashionable people be?
Rudelius’ video installation, on the other hand, uses the creation of persona as a central theme. The video features young Moroccan and Turkish men from the Netherlands discussing how their designer clothing is essential to how they are perceived. Rudelius depicts how this outward shallowness is necessary to these men’s lives. In order to cope with their cultural identities, the subjects spend extravagant amounts of money in order to set themselves apart from their given cultural background while simultaneously attempting to gain acceptance from another.
Sherman and Rudelius may only represent a small percentage of “Dress Codes”, but their ideas on constructing identity can be seen throughout the triennial. “Dress Codes” offers an introspective look at the culture of fashion. Clothing is an aspect of life that many do not think about, but the exhibition makes it clear that clothing influences who we are and how we react to the world around us. The ICP triennial brings the importance of fashion to the forefront, but whether or not we should be celebrating the industry is up for debate. The viewer is merely offered multiple viewpoints on the same subject. This exhibition does not offer a solution for or verdict on fashion, but we are given the chance to look closely at our own situations and draw conclusions.

Bigger Isn't Always Better

Occupying all three exhibition floors of the New Museum, “Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty” uses larger than life objects, both abstract and recognizable, in an attempt to transport the viewer to a trippy, surreal space. Upon exiting the elevator onto the fourth floor (for it is suggested by museum staff that visitors begin there and work their way down) the viewer is faced with massive freeform metal objects, one hanging from the ceiling and the others resting on the floor. These sculptures would seem infinitely heavy if it were not for the knowledge that they are cast out of aluminum. Also on the fourth floor are three unrelated pieces—a not-to-scale skeleton entering or escaping a cardboard box, a pink melting light post, and a cake floating below a bag above part of a subway seat. Moving down, the third floor is largely empty space, its focus being the walls. Fischer photographed every inch of wall and ceiling to create a wallpaper of the entire space which he attached just off center. In other words, ever object on the wall and ceiling, from the fire alarm to the light fixtures, is being followed by a shadow of itself. The effect, which could easily be assumed to be intentional, is like visual tracers. The center piece of this level is a green melting baby grand piano. Continuing to the second floor, the viewer enters a room filled with a host of familiar objects, from food and clothing to lighters and even a red British phone booth. These objects are actually photographs silkscreened onto highly reflective metal boxes. The viewer therefore can look at all four sides of the recognizable object while also seeing reflections of other objects and him or herself. Then, in the corner and seemingly out of place, is a pair of melting crutches.

There is a serious lack of continuity within this show as a whole, which Fischer possibly tried to address by dispersing his melted Dalí-esque pieces among all three floors. The entire exhibition seems rather drug-induced right down to the arbitrary titles on the ill-placed placards. Overall, it is good for a few laughs and maybe more than a few perplexed looks, but visitors should not expect much else.

Dress Codes: The 3rd ICP Triennial of Photography and Video at the International Center of Photography (ICP)

Described as ‘the only one of its kind in America’, the 2009 triennial is ICP’s signature exhibition and marks the ending of its Year of Fashion. With an exclusive focus on ‘Fashion (as a form of social communication)’, the intention of this exhibition is to understand it by using ‘costume, clothing and disguise’ and expressing it by means of ‘specific references to history, culture, gender and geography’.
Some of the featured 34 artists were successful in establishing a strong connection between fashion and social communication. In Tagged, Julika Rudelius has invited young immigrants of Turkish and Moroccan decent who spend extravagantly on branded clothing. Shot in a hotel room, the narrative shows these young men trying on their clothes while talking about the amount they spent on each. The video is about the interplay between the men’s need to be accepted into the society they migrated to by wearing haute couture and guilt of spending these amounts in face of prevailing poverty back home. Yto Barrada’s The Belt, Step 1 to 9 is a series of nine photographs that reference the smuggling of clothes by an elderly woman into Morocco. With a bland face, the woman methodically unties the contraband clothes hidden under her djellaba. Both these artists reference fashion in terms of social, cultural and geographical context.
However, not all artists conform to ICP’s focus so agreeably. In Laurie Simmon’s Ballroom II, she first photographs an empty miniature set, then adds cutouts of women posing in fashionable clothes and a plastic toy male figure. She also places spotlights and a dreamy, starry background. The end result is aesthetically pleasing piece about fashion, but its social or cultural connection is rather weak. The case of Kota Ezawa’s lightboxes is similar. In New! ($2.99/ea), he takes images from Ikea catalogues and stylizes the scene by reducing the objects to flat shapes. He does however retain some of the advertising and pricing, thus the ‘New!’ and ‘$2.99/ea’. Even though his lightboxes are comment on material culture, its relationship to fashion is seems ambiguous.
Overall, not all works in this exhibition measure up to its objective of placing Fashion in terms of social, cultural and historical perspectives, especially for a Grand Finale. A more selective collection of artists’ work that conforms to the exhibition’s mold better and/or adapting the focus, perhaps making it broader would have made the show stronger and helped encompass all the works.