Reasonably extensive in its reach, ‘Dress Codes’ includes over 100 works by artists, established and emerging, stemming from eighteen different countries. While Americans, local New Yorkers in particular, seem to dominate the line-up, the exhibition features reasonable representation from Europe and Asia. There are a handful of South Americans and Wangechi Mutu is the lone African. Yet while biennial and triennial events often strive towards diversity, most attempts at presenting an all-encompassing show are abandoned due to the risk of almost certain failure, especially in a relatively small space such as the ICP. The result can range from an incoherent mélange to a remarkably fluid cross-section. ‘Dress Codes’ dips into both of these extremes, simultaneously offering the obvious and the unanticipated, and ultimately presenting a number of startlingly memorable works.
One of the most predictable elements of the show is the appropriation of fashion-related images from the mass media. Cindy Sherman’s 2007 venture into fashion magazine photography, which appeared in Paris Vogue, was an inescapable inclusion. Dressed in Balenciaga, Sherman transforms herself into a variety of ultimately grotesque ‘fashionista’ caricatures. The multifigure shots become fascinating in their relocation from the pages of Vogue to the walls of the ICP, substantiating Craig Owen’s description of Sherman as an artist who merges herself and her role ‘into a seamless whole in such a way that it seems impossible to distinguish the dancer from the dance’.
A comparatively obvious appropriation of mass media is Wangechi Mutu’s 'The Ark Collection' (2006). These collages reference ethnological endeavors as Mutu skillfully combines images from a popular calendar series titled 'Women of the African Ark' with photographs from fashion, pornography and men’s magazines, resulting in mutant-like constructions of imagined female sexuality. Despite the provocation these images may maintain in isolation, they seem to get lost amongst the bigger, more pronounced pieces. Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Want Me) (2009) – a screen-print of a 1950s Hollywood starlet with the words ‘want me’ laid over the image on mesh fabric – on the other hand is big, graphic and striking. Yet it seems to demand a mere cursory glance and Kruger’s inclusion in the show appears to be based more on her long celebrated subversion of the media industry she was once a part of than the salient novelty of the work presented.
Works that demand a great deal more than a superficial look, however, are in abundance in the show. British artist Richard Learoyd’s Agnes, Red Dress (2008) displays a breathtaking level of photographic lucidity. Through a complicated procedure involving the use of a room-sized camera obscura, a powerful flash and a lens installed in a wall connecting two rooms, Learoyd’s portrait recalls nineteenth-century daguerreotypes through its presentation of surprisingly tactile flesh. Freckles, pores, blemishes and unexpected facial hair all stand in translucent contrast to the sitter’s vibrant red dress. Valérie Belin’s Untitled (2006) photographs in the gallery below abandon dress altogether, and present models – nude from the shoulders up and cloaked in black backgrounds – that at first glance may appear to be mannequins, suggesting an idea of perfection based on a man-made prototype. What becomes interesting is how Belin’s models are as astonishing for their flawlessness as Learoyd’s Agnes is for her imperfections.
Some of the most captivating works on the show are Turkish artist Pinar Yolaçan’s Untitled (2007) series of haunting portraits of Afro-Brazilian women from the Island of Itaparica. A familiarity with this fashion-designer-turned-artist’s previous work may take away an element of surprise, as the glistening and seemingly ostentatious garments worn by her sitters demand a closer look. Much like her previous work, Yolaçan expertly combines vintage fabrics with animal flesh and insides. Velvet and satin are beautifully integrated with cow placenta and other animal organs and innards. And while the shock subsides and the morbid fascination sets in, the facial expressions of the sitters, ranging in age between 27 and 90, are what leave the most potent impression. Through visages of grandeur, pride and austerity, these women’s faces tell tales as beguiling as the outfits they wear.
A very different presentation of self-respect sits on the opposite wall in the form of Lorna Simpson’s installation Please remind me of who I am (2009). A cluster of framed black-and-white photo-booth images of anonymous African-American women from mid-twentieth century America are interspersed with abstract ink-washes. Simpson suggests how the photo-booth allowed its sitters to construct their poses within the intimacy of private isolation. Expressions of pride abound and become all the more powerful when the sitters’ attire from a bygone era reminds the viewer of the racial and gender-related restrictions they are likely to have faced. While the delicate ink-washes initially seem unnecessarily supplementary, their evanescence interlaces the fleeting nature of self-respect.
Moving from the intimacy of a photo-booth to the intimacy of home, one of the most moving pieces on the show was possibly the most remote from the theme of dress. Through personal experiences of class in Shanghai, Chinese artist Hu Yang reveals an astonishing amount about China’s biggest city in relatively few images (only a handful of the 500 photographs that make up the series feature in ‘Dress Codes’). Shanghai Living (2005) includes portraits of people from various classes – from destitute migrants to established artists and affluent captains of industry – within the setting of their very different homes. Short bodies of text that accompany each image were compiled from three questions Yang asked his subjects, including: What is your current living situation? What is your greatest ambition? What do you fear most? The result is a remarkable level of verisimilitude, revealing a great deal from members of a society known for its confidentiality.
The video works, as I experienced them, were less commanding than the photography in their approaches. Memorable works, however, include German artist Julika Rudelius’s Tagged (2003), which includes interviews with Moroccan and Turkish immigrants living in the Netherlands and explores the importance they place on designer clothing both despite and because of their societal status. Korean artist Kimsooja’s exploration of the textile industry in Mumbai: A Laundry Field (2007–2008) is indelible for its fluctuation between vibrancy and desolation, reflecting the urban fabric of an Indian city.
While ‘Dress Codes’ reveals less about the nameless, faceless force that often robs us of our sartorial singularity, the exhibition in various parts conveys the forces that reside within us, including the ways we find and deplete self-respect, how we live our lives, and how we carry our own physicality – which despite its convolution, I suspect, may have been the intention.
