Rise of Rebellion: DailyServing’s latest week-long series

Today on DS, we look at the desire and longing for rebellion embedded in the work of Nan Goldin, Larry Clark, Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley. Check out how the acts captured in these artists’ work become an icon for a generation desperate for a more rebellious lifestyle.

Thinking back to the days of being a rebellious teenager make me want to run the other direction. There is nothing worse than revisiting the angst and discomfort of adolescence – my mild rebellious behavior and general dislike of the world around me. Rebellious acts always seem mediocre and immature to me these days, despite living a very 20-something lifestyle. But there have always been those artists that so tactfully ride the line between a perfectly composed yet rebellious life that I inherently envy. I find it fascinating to watch the career of artists who successfully make work that is both personal and universal, unruly and conforming, attractive and disgusting – who document their own outsider world and show our distance to it.

This rebel has long been the muse of the artist. And when I consider the muse, Nan Goldin and Larry Clark’s use and abuse of the rebellious lifestyle become both personal document and cultural reality, while assuming the roll of Art Historical mainstay in the category of the documentary photograph. But Dash Snow, a true example of both insider and outsider, straddled this relationship and found a way to make the chaos of his life appear both seductive and desirable. A hero of punk culture, Snow’s rebellious history and lifestyle was the subject and an embodiment of his work – both personal anthem and documentation. Snow sold his own context, using his life as a guarantee of credibility and reality to the outside world, by choosing to participate in the contemporary art system, yet his product was a life through the photographic document.

Both “genius” and tortured soul, Snow’s lifestyle was muse and product- and ultimately it was his rebellious lifestyle that brought him to an early death. Ryan McGinley equally rides this ambiguous line, to the point that I can’t decide if his work is rebellious or utopian. There is something about the idealized reality in his work that harks back to the personal documentation of Clark and Goldin, but successfully sells his own contemporary youthful lifestyle.

The act of rebellion doesn’t always lead you in the opposing path of the system or lifestyles that it moves against. And, often the very thought or association of rebellion becomes so desirable to the masses because it appears to be simply out of their grasp. All of these artists have successfully depicted their own rebellious lifestyle and have offered this spirit back to a complacent public that longs for the moment to  give up the boredom that fills their normal lives and grab onto the freedom that is falsely associated with rebellion.

Recalling the stateliness and beauty of warriors, the delicate chainmail in Mella Jaarsma’s latest work, Dirty Hands, is only interrupted through the visitor’s intervention in the form of light projections of 17th century Dutch prints picturing early colonial confrontations in Indonesia. While on one hand, the interactivity provides a recreation of these historical tensions, the intervention subtly implicates the viewer in their role as teller of incidents which fade into the shadows of history. Of Dutch origin, Jaarsma travelled to Jakarta, Indonesia in the early 1980s to study art, and has since been based in Yogyakarta. The use of shadows has been a fascination throughout her artistic practice, inspired by wayang (shadow puppet theatre) performances and reflections of visitors’ shadows by traditional wall lamps on roadside stalls. In Jaarsma’s body of work, one will find that her shadows have been employed as a representative of the human body and its position in relation to these cultural, social and religious surroundings.

Jaarsma’s garments also indicate our membership to specific groups by posing as a second skin.  Hi Inlander is Jaarsma’s first in a series of works invoking cloaks and shelters, as symbols of human habitats in physical and cultural forms. Each garment employs a sensation of taboo, through sensitive or contentious materials to provoke dialogue and diverse interpretations of these materials across cultures. The first cloak of Hi Inlander exhibited comprised frog leg skins processed into leather and has been worn by a man at exhibitions in Indonesia, referencing the racial riots against the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia in 1998 which made apparent the fractious relations in the multi-ethnic society. The deliberate choice of frogs was used to carry across the different perceptions of animals and their roles in human culture and in this specific case, how Chinese consider frog legs a delicacy which Muslims consider unclean, yet when presented in Australia, it took on another cultural context.  Jaarsma included cloaks from chicken feet, kangaroo skins and fish skins, and the wearing of the animal cloaks coincided with an event offering the meat of these four animals with a variety of spices to an international group of visitors, bringing about communal eating to open up communication and cultural insight into viewing animals and food. Chinese and French members began preparing frog legs which were eaten by other visitors for the first time and likewise, Australians did the same with kangaroo meat.

Another work based on a tumultuous historical milestone is The Follower, which was conceived of immediately after the  Bali bombing in 2002 and the ensuing representation of Indonesia as a country fueling terrorism by the international media. Jaarsma carefully selected embroidered badges from a range of social organizations in Indonesia, from sports clubs, social clubs and political parties to religious communities, and sewed these emblems together – some adjacent to each other, and some on top of the other – to create a cloak which illustrates the moderate, hybrid and diverse cultural landscape of Indonesia.

Jaarsma’s work, Dirty Hands, is currently on view at The Esplanade in Singapore is a group show entitled  Making History: How Southeast Asian Art Reconquers the Past to Conjure the Future. Jaarsma was born in the Netherlands in 1960, and studied visual art at Minerva Academy, Groningen, the Art Institute of Jakarta and the Indonesia Institute of the Arts. In 1988, together with her partner Nindityo Adipurnomo she founded the Cemeti Gallery in Yogyakarta (now known as Cemeti Art House) organizing exhibitions, projects and residencies. Both Jaarsma and Adipurnomo were awarded the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Prize for their significant contribution to art in Asia.

Call and Response: Africa to America / The Art of Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo recently opened at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. The exhibition brings together the work of two American artists intrigued by the formation of cultural identity and individual experience within a society. Drawing inspiration from the rich ceremonial traditions and elaborate guises of African nations, Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo create objects that are visually captivating and conceptually charged. Cave’s imaginative Soundsuits and Galembo’s photographic portraits of West African masqueraders prompt the viewer to regard the world in terms of connection and community.

Upon entering the Halsey, one is struck by the mystical presence of Cave’s Soundsuits. Cave, a former dancer and current Chair of the Fashion Design Department at the School of the Art institute of Chicago, combines his experience in modern dance with his expertise in fiber textiles to create his Soundsuits. The first soundsuit was constructed entirely of gathered twigs, resulting in a subtle rustling sound when worn; thus, the name. The kaleidoscopic costumes reference the ritualistic garments worn by Galembo’s subjects, the people of Africa whom she has spent decades photographing. Cave’s sculptures, anthropomorphic assemblages of materials such as dyed human hair, plastic buttons, beads, sisal, sequins, fabrics, feathers, and other natural ephemera, are layered with personal and cultural associations. The disparate materials are masterfully woven together by the artist, ornamental embellishments create undeniable tactile and visual appeal for the viewer; the soundsuits incite a collective sense of awe.

In the adjacent gallery, Phyllis Galembo’s photographic portraits chronicle masqueraders from various West African countries, including Benin, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. The masquerade is a meaningful mode of cultural expression for several African groups, and Galembo presents a straightforward observation of individuals within particular cultures. Galembo’s work is a field study on these regions, a modern documentation of their ancient ceremonial traditions. Disguised as animals, spirits, or ancestors, her subjects enact ancient legends and stories, but the artist captures them in stasis. Galembo, described as a “photographic hunter-gatherer” by writer Emma Reeves, incorporates her subjects’ natural surroundings in detailed compositions that highlight the garments, the accoutrements (i.e. a staff to connote authority), and the occasional glimpse of a bare, or sneakered, foot of a masquerader. Galembo elegantly achieves a personal encounter with a masked individual, and successfully conveys this engagement to the remote viewer.

Call and Response: Africa to America will remain on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art until June 26th. The exhibition is taking place during Spoleto Festival USA, an annual performing arts event held in Charleston, SC every spring. The Halsey’s sincere presentation of Cave’s soundsuits and Galembo’s photographs offer an exciting visual arts alternative to the citywide performing arts festival.

The art world. It’s way more serious and important than every other industry! This thinking at least seems to persist even though the field of contemporary art has maintained an open flirtation with its sassy sister, the fashion industry, since long before even Andy Warhol trotted his wacky wigs around Studio 54 with the likes of Diane von Fürstenberg. There is a mutual fascination between the two fields, and yet it seems that the art world would prefer to keep its consorting with the fashion industry confined strictly to social events, rather than consider fashion (so low-brow!) as a worthy subject matter for actual works of art.

Los Angeles-based artist, Kimberly Brooks‘, current solo show at Taylor De Cordoba gallery in Culver City breaks with this norm to explore the intrigue of the fashion industry’s most iconic stylemakers—without the precept of farce or condemnation. The Stylist Project (on view through April 3rd) presents Brooks’ latest body of work—a series of oil painted portraits of fashion industry insiders, including stylist to the starts and Bravo TV fixture, Rachel Zoe, and award winning costume designer and Madonnaʼs personal stylist Arianne Phillips, among others.

The work on view blends the fields of art and fashion astutely, presenting the fashionable set as they have styled themselves, while at the same time drawing upon the ages-old artistic tradition of portraiture. The regal positions of some of the sitters recall Renaissance royals, and the sprawled poses of others touch on the early Modern depiction of courtesans, such as Edouard Manet’s Olympia.

The Stylist Project is the third solo show for Brooks at Taylor De Cordoba. The first two, Mom’s Friends (2007) and Technicolor Summer (2008), explored much more personal subject matter than the present show. Brooks’ outward shift to now document the fashion industry with this latest series has garnered a lot of attention from media and publications that wouldn’t normally publish gushing articles about fine artists. At the Taylor De Cordoba gallery, they’ve laid out a stack of glossies with Brooks’ name inked onto them. When I asked Heather Taylor, Director of Taylor De Cordoba, to discuss the widespread reception that this exhibition has received, she told me, “The bottom line is that people are hungry for this dialogue and Kimberly is pulling the curtain back on the fashion world, which up until the past year—with the popularity of [the film] ‘The September Issue’ and [the TV show] ‘The Rachel Zoe Project’—had been fairly mysterious.”

New York born, Los Angeles based, Kimberly Brooks maintains her studio in Venice, CA. She earned her BA from UC Berkeley and trained in fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design and UCLA. Her work has been included in numerous juried exhibitions, including at Pleiades Gallery of Contemporary Art, New York; Risk Press Gallery, Los Angeles; and Phillips de Pury Auction House, Los Angeles.

There is a long history of art being presented along side fashion. These exhibitions have left one with the feeling that the art is being used to lend conceptual weight to the clothes. But the rigorous exhibitions mounted at Antwerp’s Fashion Museum makes it clear that fashion designers can be as conceptually strong as visual artists. Their current exhibition is an overview of fashion designer Veronique Branquinho. She graduated from Flanders Fashion Institute in 1995. Since 1998, she has shown her collections on the world’s fashion runways, but this is the first museum presentation of her creative output.

With this exhibition, Branquinho leads us on an expansive journey. Upon entering the exhibition, the sound of your shoes is amplified, by the gravel on the floor of the darkened forest room where her shoe collections come to light hanging from the trees. Past a moving video installation, the viewer is lead through an empty chamber that functions as a Bruce Nauman Absorbing Chamber, circa 1983. Another room is outfitted with a jukebox playing cool club music. It’s like a Jeff Koons icon to American pop culture. Clearly, Branquinho knows her art history. Dark evening wear is presented, revealing her passion for combining different materials that layer and drape to accentuate the female form. The procession here leads from dark, to the darker, and then there is light.

For this trip, Branquinho provides an overcoat for the discerning man, along with a Porsche outfitted in matching tweed, both inside and out. Presented along with a video of a car racing through the open desert, we’re finally ready to go. The desert provides the metaphor of endless openness as we head forward into our unknown future. At least we can be well dressed for the surprises that await us. Finally, bursting into the light, with the stunning beauty that a clear vision can provide. Visual artists take note; creative thought will lead us, as we head into the excitement of the unknown.

Veronique Branquinho at Modemuseum Provincie Antwerpen, through August 17th.

There have been many recent exhibitions exploring the relationships between art and fashion, but the current exhibition at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen surveys the exhibition through a previously unexplored angle. “Vreemde Dingen” or translated to English, “Strange Things” looks at the influence of Surrealism on art, design, fashion, film and architecture. Curated by the Antwerp based fashion designers, Walter van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saene, they combine all the above to provide a well rounded overview of this important, although short lived, art movement.

The exhibition combines historical works such as, Rene Magritte’s “Le Modele Rouge III”, Salvador Dali, “Mae West Lips Sofa”. 1937- 38, and Elsa Schiaparelli, “The Skeleton Dress” 1938, with more recent works by Cindy Sherman, Martin Margiela, Andrea Camarosano, Sarah Lucas and Van Beirendonck’s, “Finally Chesthair” 1997, which reproduces Walter’s own chest on a stretch fit tee shirt, (please provide your own belly). This full exhibition, with over 200 works, shows the influence that surrealism continues to have on the creative output of today.

“Vreemde Dingen” is realized in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdam.

Breaking all the rules in fashion and design, Bernhard Willhelm, a German native residing in Belgium, uses colors, volumes and themes that challenge labeling. In 1999, Willhelm started with womenswear, an assemblage that premiered at fashion shows in Paris. The designer fashioned his first collection of menswear in 2000, which he didn’t allow the public to view until 2003’s Menswear Fashion Week. Other accomplishments include a showing of his work organized in 2003 by the Ursula Blickle Art Foundation in Germany, coupled with the publishing of his book in 2004 by Lukas & Sternberg. In 2005, the orphans’ aid association Misericordia asked him to design the school’s uniforms. In addition, he has launched his first shoe line and created the “White Wild Bunch,” a clothing line only available online at YOOX. Willhelm attended Royal Academy of Antwerp in Belgium and worked alongside Walter Van Beirendonck, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Dirk Bikkembergs.