Close & Personal With Skin Tight |
By Robyn Coffey |
As much an ode to the human body as a fashion exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary
Art�s Skin Tight: The Sensibility of the Flesh presents the work of ten
artists and designers who specialize in that most avant-garde of art forms:
conceptual fashion.
The garments, accessories, videos, and installations in the show aim to examine
the fine line where flesh ends and identity begins. The designers, seven of
whom hail from Belgium or Holland�quintessential centers of conceptual design�reference
inspirations far beyond mere style. Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort�s sensuous
multimedia altar of flesh exemplifies the sexualized body, with large-format
photographs of nude bodies as well as accessories and environmental furnishings
that all invoke the color and texture of naked skin. Conversely, Hussein Chalayan�s
garments focus on the technological and architectural elements of the body,
as seen in his white fiberglass dress with remote-controlled panels that move
up and down like those on an airplane�s wing.
Japanese label Under Cover�s cuddly/creepy ensembles bring to mind Sally from
A Nightmare Before Christmas if she were to design a winter line. Displayed
on mannequins that are suspended from the ceiling and rotate slowly like hanged
corpses, the coats are covered in a textural hodge-podge of mismatched buttons,
big ugly stitches, rich brocades, and patchy fur, and are accompanied by toy
designer Anne-Valerie Dupond�s beautifully misshapen bird masks.
But clearly the star of Skin Tight, Belgian Walter Van Bierendonck, is
my new personal favorite. His eclectic, brightly-colored garments wouldn�t be
out of place in a world where Alice in Wonderland is a sado-masochist and the
White Rabbit has a latex fetish. From cartoon-print T-shirts paired with zippered
black leather leggings to ridiculously oversized suits and ties, � la the Mad
Hatter Tea party, black, plastic, insect-like helmets and tribal-style Astroturf
headwear, Van Bierendonck is a force unto himself. Not only is the dark-side-of-pop-culture
clothing compelling and highly original, the runway shows on video rival Broadway
in full-scale stage productions, complete with light, sound, and water special
effects. They run the gamut from whimsical�rows of male models in cowboy-punk
gear line-dancing in formation�to bizarrely offbeat, as when his models appear
looking like Vulcans from the set of Star Trek, only with horns and knobs protruding
from their faces. Van Bierendonck continually challenges notions of conventional
beauty, and in nearly every show the models are variously painted, pierced,
dyed, or altered by prosthetics.
Despite the fact that the arrangement of the exhibition space in the museum
prevented clear lines of sight to the video screens and prohibited smooth crowd
flow, Skin Tight provides a rare and valuable glimpse at the work of
designers who stretch our notions of what qualifies as body or clothing. Most
of the garments are not strictly wearable, but it doesn�t matter when high-concept
fashion is understood in context. Without fashion and its relentless trickle-down/bubble-up
effect that allow us continuous redefinition of our identities, we will never
come to recognize, as J.C. Ballard puts it, �that nature has endowed us with
one skin too few, and that a fully sentient being should wear its nervous system
externally.�