Week 3 - 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.

 Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000

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?

These works are experimental and creative. I think they are fashion, and art too. The art in forms of fashion. Fashion and fashion trends mainly refers to anything which is popular in a culture at any given time. It is inclusive of areas such as; style of dress, cuisine, literature, art, architecture, fashion trends and many other popular factors. Fashion trends often change rapidly, and "fashion" is often used to describe the latest version of these trends. (What is Fashion?-Fashion Trends, 2006)

 

In my opinion, the difference between fashion and art is fashion more focous on the garment, style and trend, it's the latest version; art present beauty in form, it is timeless. 

Often conceived as sculptural or artistic expressions, high fashions and couture designs also move between the boundaries of fashion and art. (Quinn, 2003, p.10)

After words expressed a political reality that articulated relationships between garments and cultural narratives, charging elements of histirical tragedy with a narrative of fresh optimism. (Quinn, 2003, p.70)

In Burka (1996),  "Hussein Chalayan's 'Chadors' give women the means to either conceal their entire bodies or expose them at will. She swathe the models in body-conscious sheaths that allow them to draw the gaze of others while remaining anonymous." (Quinn, 2003, p.24) 

Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion? 
Anything which is popular in the culture makes fashion fashion.

Hussein Chalayan, Burka, 1996

Hussein Chalayan slashed full-length burkas to mini skirts and then even shoulder-length in 1996.

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 feel it's like I did some thinking and made some works under the studio themed brife or it's like I wrote the letters with the named article title. Acctually I think the comercial bussiness let Hussein Chalayan done more creative approach beacuse he got sufficient funds to explore new ideas. "His inspirations and the many themes which influence his work such as cultural identity, displacement and migration." (Dezeen podcasts, 2009)

I don't think the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products. It's still art. It's just have more space and fund to play with and more people can pay attention on the works.

 

The Level Tunnel (2006)

Above: Hussein Chalayan, Repose 2006, Aircraft wing with Swarovski.

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 enlightenment science, reason and logic thought- because he was using the DNA to retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer.
• Post-modernism- art as process, performance. Play, challeng to official seriousness.
• Symbolism-each worn clothes represent individually wearer.
• Futuristic-It has contemporary concepts of the future, including technology.
• Humanism- based on belief in the dignity of human beings, informed by science and motivated by human hope and human compassion.

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?

Some art works like Hussein Chalayan's clothes are minimal in look but maximal in thought,so the most important thing is the idea/ thought. However, when the artists do the works by themselves they would put more thinking and much more time on the works which will become more valuable. That work will be the only unique piece in the world. I feel the work artist personally made have more passion and meaning. It is like how you feel the difference bewteen hand made and machine made on the crafts. I think it is important that the artist personally made the piece when he/she wants to express himself/herself better and deeper.

References:

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

http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html 

http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/

Warner, S. (2011). In Pictures: Hussein Chalayan http://fashindie.ning.com/profiles/blogs/in-pictures-hussein-chalayan?xg_source=activity

http://www.whatmakesfashion.com/

Dazzen podcasts (2009) http://www.dezeen.com/2009/01/27/dezeen-podcast-hussein-chalayan-at-the-design-museum/

Hay, Sarah. "Conceptualist for our times; Hussein Chalayan continues to defy definition. By Sarah  Hay." Financial Times 9 July 2011: 5. General OneFile. Web. 21 Aug. 2011.

Quinn, B. (2003). The Fashion of Architecture. Oxford: Berg.