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?
Im not sure what makes fashion fashion, but I think fashion is related to their peronality, which can influence people. Chalayan’s idea behind his works of Afterwords (2000) looks unwearable because it may heavy, also it looks more architecture. However I really liked the idea.
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?
I don't think working for commercial business would not change the meaning of art, because every art work can be made up purposely.
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?
It is important when an artist is the first to design or create their own works. That is probably the reason why contemporary artists today mainly consider themselves to have ‘originally’ created their pieces, even though engineers and/ or manufacturers helped them create the work.
I think fashion is something that is popular for amount of poeple to wear, however, the work here Chalayan does is so low chance for people to wear, because it is so heavy and will be uncomfotable to wear. i think the works are more like art pieces, however when the works turn to commercial products, the artists should do something to make the design more suitable for custmers.
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