Art Hag

On view until Saturday at Apex Art in Tribeca is A Way Beyond Fashion, a small exhibit displaying the work of 11 artists and/or designers that "analyzes the shifting boundaries between art and fashion design." The artists/designers in the exhibit "blur the lines between the two disciplines" and along with questioning individuality and identity they "revise some key technological, ecological and socio-economic issues of our day." The exhibit's curator, Robert Punkenhofer, states in the exhibition notes, "For A Way Beyond Fashion, my primary intention was to find works on the periphery between art and fashion. Together, the explored issues - relating to communication, identity, technology and ecological sustainability - provide exciting fashion themes, which in turn are analyzed from the perspective of art."

Designer Rudi Gernreich "whose level of conceptual depth and radicalism" inspired Punkenhofer to curate the exhibit, introduced the "unisex design concept" at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, Japan. Along with "thematiz[ing] sexual identity as an important aspect of fashion," the pioneering Gernreich also "experimented with technology, toyed with unusual fabrics, including vinyl, plastic and paper, and created the space suit and military look."

One of my favorite designers, London-based Hussein Chalayan, often incorporates technology into his clothing designs. On view is his 2007 LED Dress made of "Crystallized Swarovski Elements," LED lights, and chiffon/silk overlay. The dress actually lights up like a Christmas tree! The Absent Presence (2005), a 5-screen video piece created by Chalayan and starring fashion fave, Tilda Swinton, plays on a flat-screen television beside his LED Dress. Originally shown at the Venice Biennale, the video shows a future that includes "fashion scans" that "access private data and track consumer behavior."

Highly inspired and influenced by the "indigenous population of the Yucatan and other areas of [her native] Mexico" Carla Fernandez "challeng[es] the role of fashion and design in creating cultural identity." Along with Pedro Reyes, Fernandez created Square Clothes for Round-Minded People (2009) which consists of "seven pieces of clothing featuring a strictly geometric design of squares and rectangles." The very cool and contemporary pieces are made of wool, suede and cotton and hang from the wall on steel hangers. Accompanying videos demonstrate the multiple ways in which the garments can be worn.

New York-based Jenny Marketou created ParKour (wear), 12 wearable paper dresses emblazoned with advertising slogans like "Fragile" and "Freedom is the new luxury." Marketou hopes to show with her brightly-colored, paper, tent dresses (that remind me of Stephen Sprouse) "how the human body is reclaiming the public space through fashion."

Japanese artist Takehiko Sanada enlisted 500 volunteers to cultivate their own cotton which he used to create Hou/Jun (2008) which means "healthy and happy." He used the yarn along with wire and sculpted delicate human forms. According to the exhibit's notes, the process of creating the sculptures helped Sanada attain "the state of an 'enriched heart and mind' where he turns a fragmented, hectic world into an infinitely layered and interconnected life encapsulated in the 'eternal time,'" a contradiction to the fast-paced and soul-crushing fashion industry.

Since I often bemoan the commercialization and dumbing down of fashion - every tasteless starlet now has a clothing line and every velour tracksuit-clad mall-rat proclaims herself a fashion expert, or worse, a "fashionista" (Have you ever noticed how the people who bandy that word about the most are usually the least fashionable?) - I'm glad that these artists and designers are aiming to take the art form to an intellectual and socially responsible level. Learn more at apexart.org. Through October 24th.

Rudi Gernreich, Scarf (on left wall), 1960's, and Takehiko Sanada, Hou/Jun (right), 2008