Analogue Chic

For centuries, it was easy to identify an upper-class woman by the amount of fabric she was wearing– yards and yards of it.  This has implications from art history to the hijab debate in Islam.  Nowadays, the opposite may be true ("It’s better to be cold and stylish, than to be warm and frumpy.").  But there is still a class of women, even in our modern democratic society, whose role it is to be fertile and look attractive for their husbands.  I’m talking about you, Fairfield County.

Here are two artists who deal with women (and men) and fabric. (Also see Shadi Ghadirian.)

Elene Usdin, Femmes d’Interieur series

In this series of pictures on “Femmes d’intérieur”, I want to play with the codes, to re-arrange them, giving a cushion or a chair or a pair of shoes the same attention as the subject. It’s my way of depersonalizing the woman, of turning her into (perhaps what she always was): the object, the woman-object. Upending things in effect poses the question: what is the social status of a woman? The reference to “great classics” of painting is a good way to illustrate how a woman is corseted by her rank and the social position of her husband or her own family.

To speak of just one of these photographs : the portrait of “Georges”, is the one of (Georges) Sand, the writer, who in her own era deconstructed the codes corseting women. I have chosen to repaint the famous portrait of her by Charpentier which shows Sand with an amused smile.
In my vision, she is inviting the viewer to sit down on her, she is the woman-chair. But attention: on the armrest there lurks an aggressive barracuda which reverses the notion of the submissive woman. A kick in the nose to what society once expected of women. And today, is their independence so much more meaningful?

Quotes via Elene Usdin.

Andre Wagner, Black Holes series

I was unable to find any artist statement or curator’s description of this series.  Many different intended meanings could be read into the series title… Optimistically, my interpretation is that this series is a commentary on the tendency of people in the West to view people of other, non-Western cultures, even people of non-European descent living in the West, as one simplified image, identified by their foreign clothing, rather than as individuals.

It appears he has digitally erased the flesh of his subjects as well as the background, leaving disembodied clothing, although you can still see wisps of hair peeking from the pallu of the girl on the left in the first photo.

All images copyright to their respective creators.

Via PSFK.