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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator
Thursday 28 December @ 15:23:06 |
 by CHRISTOPHER KOZA
Weisman Art Museum curator Diane Mullin has organized a fun, fascinating and adventure exhibit that offers a cure for the common clothes. Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator explores the (sometimes) wearable responses that artists have to the aesthetics and utility of clothing.
The show is built around U.S. and international artists, and curated into six sections: The Everyman, Multi-Tasking, Container/Contained, Clothed, Construction/Creation and Identity. They focus on how utility and expression serve Everyman; how artists consider clothing’s multiple; how people are containers for clothes; how social responsibilities factor into the construction and creation of clothing, and how the choice of what becomes covered determines that which is unclothed; and how choosing what to wear and how to wear it determines personal identity.
Greeting the visitor at the threshold of the exhibit is British artist Lucy Orta’s “Nexus Architecture x 8.” Eight dead-weight, free-floating specters donned in Nexus radioactive suits spill out from the exhibition space. Connected by a fabric pipeline, which is printed with hieroglyphic symbols that convey a timeless warming, they spill out from the exhibit space.
The nature of clothing implies the existence of a person, but the Weisman galleries are filled with powerfully opinionated garments that move beyond realism. Each garment possesses a characteristic that lends itself more easily to fiction. In fact, if anyone besides a fictitious character wore the piece, he or she would appear about as charismatic as a department store mannequin. In this show, the suit makes the man and the dress makes the woman-there are no blurry lines or blatant transgender offerings.
U.S. designer and artist Mimi Smith comments on America’s ridiculous obsession with preparing for doomsday in “Covering for an Environmental Catastrophe.” In this piece protection from Armageddon is a pair of chaps and chest armor fashioned from steel wool. The flimsy suit offers is nothing but a false safety in the wake of a global calamity.
Fashion collective Studio 5050 supplies a pair of ingenious “Love Jackets” to the exhibit. Placed in the “Identity” section of the show, the jackets are produced in pairs and directly interact with each other. When one jacket comes in contact with its mate, sensors create chirping sounds and flickering lights. This sounds can be heard throughout the whole exhibit, as these novel-to-obnoxious creations “talk” incessantly to each other.
A video by Yoko Ono in the room entitled “Pattern Language” comes at the end of the exhibit. This 1964 “Cut Piece” is a pleasing addition to the mostly stationary works, and effectively punctuates a sometimes humorous and insightful exhibition. ||
Pattern Language: Clothes as Communicator is on display until Dec. 31. The Weisman is located at 333 E. River Rd., Mpls. For gallery hours and more information, please visit weisman.umn.edu.
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