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 18th 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 Both use the fashion from a past generation to make historical references and try to bring a new perspective to these past costumes.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.
The critic gives a poetic description of Tschäpe and Marcues’s photography as well as an accurate explanation of their messages of gender, fashion and the body. I agree that hanging these works across from each other within the space was a brilliant curatorial move. Perhaps the reviewer could have further explored how these artists interacted with the rest of the Triennial, providing a sense of their purpose in it? The entire show articulated themes of fashion, style, and the human body. The inclusion of these particular artist’s connection to the rest of the exhibition could have been insightful as well.
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