Over the summer, SHOWstudio invited artists to contribute to “The Fashion Body,” a videographic study of body parts. Each artist focuses on a single part of the body, and the result is an astounding array of approaches to and messages about how body parts function physically and symbolically; as fashion objects and in personal expression.
The most interesting part of “The Fashion Body” is the effect of the videos together—each artist’s interpretation of their body part, if successful, offers insight into their attitudes toward the body as a whole, which ultimately reflects a rich spectrum of reactions, methods and impetuses toward human objectification. The project smartly coincides with Fashion Week, when even the objectified body can be lost in an overwhelming obsession with what clothes it.
Sam McKnight’s “Hair,” is a striking yet straightforward record of the visual effects and movement specific to hair.
Natasa Vojnovic and Barnaby Roper’s “Mouth” is both a visual study of the mouth’s expressions and a commentary on what the mouth and our incessant use of it actually expresses—Vojnovic and Roper seem to view it as a tool of social control and emotional manipulation through which one’s self-expression, or figurative voice, is lost or even strangled.
Lady Gaga’s “Left Eye” similarly captures an inability to communicate or connect one’s outer and inner worlds. Another installment in Gaga’s somewhat tiresome dissection of the “fame monster,” it is nonetheless interesting for someone who is so much in the public eye to literally turn their eye on the public.
Noki’s “Right Knee” explores the transition from childhood to adulthood through clothing and fashion’s ability to erode innocence into something sinister and soulless—all though a montage of kneecap coverings and a particularly frightening cape.
On the other hand, Alice Hawkins’ “Chest” celebrates the empowering potential of female sexuality through the naked breast and a Nancy Sinatra soundtrack. The video is slightly gratuitous at first, but, by the end, Sinatra may as well be singing “one of these days these boobs are gonna walk all over you.”
Solve Sundsbo’s “Left Forearm” celebrates fashion’s capacity for personal expression by capturing the styling potential of the left forearm alone.
Whether narrative or meditative, positive or negative, sexualized or internalized, “The Fashion Body” videos are a compelling survey of the body’s power and its roles in fashion and society.
Videos via SHOWstudio.
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