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100412: Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg - Wearing Skirts
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
Wearing Skirts
18.02.2012 – 10.06.2012
Defilé in Salzburg
By Goschka Gawlik
Since Modernism, the free language of fashion has often been compared with other great creations of other culture forms. More importantly, it especially crosses paths with the language of the applied arts, because fashion designers – as Barthes observed – are themselves constructors of significance, myths and pictures. The appropriate semiology is then used as a sales argument.
Today, fashionable clothes and their poetry flatter the individual. They augment the diverse expression of the personality, the joy of self-presentation and, in the extreme, fashion goes well beyond the borders of this function. These thoughts, as well as the advanced processes of presenting clothing in modern photography and sculptures are the plot of an extensive exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, which has been put together from its own collection. Works by 76 artists, mainly from Austria, are currently being exhibited; they represent different generations ranging from Uli Aigner to Robert Zahornicky.
Anselm Kiefer marks the exhibition in the museum’s foyer-staircase with a sculptural horror creation: a white floor-length dress without straps and instead of the face, there is a gargantuan tangle of hair made of coarse, dark barbed wire.
The sign language of the clothing now becomes the mediator of larger categories giving structure to the exhibition "Wearing Skirts". The first one of these, "Skirt or Trousers", plays with the construction and interchangeability of the sexes visualized in several "unisex" pieces of clothing and decorative details. In 2000, Andrea Lumplecker exclusively photographed the knees of different models in segmented form, thereby proving that dualistic distinguishing criteria are in a crisis.
The artist specifically questions the expectations of sexual determination. Fashion as a masquerade ad nauseam is shown in Cindy Sherman’s early video work, Doll Clothes. Birgit Jürgenssen, on the other hand, seems very proud to wear her housewifely apron as a fetish. And the exhibition would not be complete without Valie Export's icon poster, the Aktionshose: Genitalpanik.
Fashion promises play, flirt and light-heartedness of the being. The theme of the second room is "Like Models", in which large formats by Eva Schlegel and Caroline Heider are presented. Schlegel underlines the purely superfluously fixed (fashion) culture with long-legged but blurred femininity. Through her individual photo-folding technique, Heider creates creatures rather than ideals of beauty.
Today, fashion functions fetishistically and is advertisement in itself. Its locations are boutique shop windows, magazines and online style pages. The completely artificially decorated shop windows with different, rather more staid than chic fashion, are presented in Peter Köllerer’s almost museum-like series of works "Architectures of Desire". Keeping pace with (western) fashion is strenuous and frustrating. Beat Streulis' photographic pictures illustrate the phenomena of eastern cultures, in which our style of clothing is so popular, through the exhausting shopping sprees of fashion-conscious Japanese in Tokyo's streets. "Dead Trousers" further tells us that the fashion system, in contrast to the art world, actually lies on the other side of life. While fashion swings continually between young, always new and indestructible, its wearers die. What's left of them are worn clothes that live on as relics or glamorous fetishes. Kaucyila Brooke reflects on this in her well-known photo work, Kathy Acker`s Clothes.
Clothes are also body sculptures that can continually be changed. They model the individual appearance of the person extravagantly, corpulently or moodily or they emphasize their affiliation with a social (sub)group or special careers. Here, the examples stretch from Diana Arbus’ school uniforms of the "Identical Twins" to photographs from the series Success by Hans Weiss, who shows New York business people as an unwilling, "faceless" army. Walter Seidl is somewhat less severe with a New York couple and documents in his series D&S the (apparent) reversal of the roles of the sexes by means of a co-ordinated common look.
The exhibition, which is rather sparsely decorated with sculptures, takes headless figures and sculptures by Erwin Wurm as evidence of the diverse themes and social configurations, which indicate that in the Salzburg collection, several deficits need to be remedied. Exhibitions of this sort always take place in the Museum of the Moderne without an opening ceremony and are not documented with a catalogue or publication, thereby omitting the curator's work and the results of his/her research. A pity in view of this notable and extensive exhibition, which could provide more about individual and less well-known artists if more theory and information was offered.
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32
Tel: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-403
Fax: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-700
E-mail: info@mdmsalzburg.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Opening hours: Tue to Sun So 10-18, Wed 10-20 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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100412
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32
Tel: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-403, Fax: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-700
Email: info@mdmsalzburg.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 10-18 h, Mi 10-20 h
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32
Tel: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-403, Fax: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-700
Email: info@mdmsalzburg.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 10-18 h, Mi 10-20 h
