Hussein Chalayan Exhibition in the Netherlands

Many thanks for pictures and info:-)

Here an article from iht.com:-)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/18/style/fhuss.html

Hussein Chalayan: Cultural dialogues New Feature

By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, April 19, 2005


GRONINGEN, Netherlands Can a fashion designer make a stitch of difference to the wider world? The Groninger Museum - a multicolored, post-modern edifice in the northern Netherlands - believes so.

This is what Kees van Twist, the museum's director, said last weekend as he opened an exhibition of the Turkish/Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan's first 10 years.

"This pioneering designer unites cultures and opens dialogues between them - without hinting, as our politicians often do, that one is superior to the other," he said. "We can learn from him."

In the context of troubled multiethnic relations in the Netherlands, "Hussein Chalayan" (until Sept. 4), with its exploration of the chador, Turkish costume and of the female body, takes on a particular resonance.

And in a spring season when fashion exhibitions are sprouting like tulips - Yohji Yamamoto in Paris last week or Chanel in New York next month - other museums could learn from Groninger's didactic yet dramatic approach.

"We have a mission statement," says van Twist. "We want to trigger people. They can be angry or happy, but they must not leave unmoved."

Chalayan, 34, may be controversial, but he is not confrontational. The cerebral designer's style is modernist, free from past reference. He is fascinated by the dynamics of flight and mixes complex, linear cuts with an appreciation of organic female forms.

By exploring the thought processes of the designer and by showing his work in other disciplines such as video art and photographic imagery, the Groninger Museum has set a blueprint for fashion exhibitions that too often look like samples from a fashion showroom.

"It can not only be about beauty - there has to be more behind; we are trying to tell a story," says van Twist, who sees the same connection between Chalayan's work and what is going on in society as in previous exhibitions devoted to Viktor & Rolf's clothes or Jake and Dinos Chapman's art.

The Chalayan exhibit is spare, rigorous, filling soaring spaces, as the models water olive trees, stare with soulful faces out at the busy Dutch canal or have arms raised as if cleaning their glass display cases, while their dresses seem to spill innards from the stomach area. Those disturbing clothes were from the spring/summer 2003 show "Manifest Destiny," inspired by the idea of America imposing its western ideology. Other perplexing titles have included in 2000 "Before Minus Now," focusing on mankind, technology and nature; and "Between" (1998) which ended with models, from naked to totally covered, all wearing chadors.

Many inspirations have come from Chalayan's Cyprus childhood living on the "fault line between the Muslim and Christian worlds."

"I was shocked when I was described as a 'Muslim designer' - yet I think it is wonderful that there is a fashion designer called 'Hussein,"' says Chalayan, emphasizing the duality of work grown from his Turkish (but non-religious) roots and his training at Central Saint Martins School in London, where he lives. He says that he owes his education and development to England and to "Anglo-Saxon tolerance where anyone has a chance."

The "Place to Passage" (2004) video offers a harmonious vision of opposing cultures. An aerodynamic pod, seen in all its streamlined beauty in the previous room, takes off from a London car park. It then crosses a lunar landscape, its graceful female passenger served a robotic tray of food or gently bathed in water, until the pod skims up the Bosphorus toward the mosque-filled skyline of Istanbul.

That city has become Chalayan's frequent destination since his work (although the clothes are made in Italy), has been sponsored by Turquality - an organization promoting Turkish brands and using Chalayan to raise awareness of the region. The designer also teaches at an art school in Istanbul, just as he participated in a weekend seminar at Groningen's Minerva art academy.

The exhibition, curated by Sue-an van der Zijpp, with Mark Wilson as metteur-en-scène, is over two floors. The first level emphasizes the aerodynamic outfits - what Chalayan calls "monumental" pieces that become lode stars for the more accessible parts of the collection. These include an "aeroplane" dress, with plates opening electronically to reveal a part of the body; a built in neck rest; or a chair integrated with the garment.

The display of a modernist wooden coffee table and chairs heralds one of Chalayan's most dramatic collections "Afterwords" (autumn/winter 2000/2001). As the slipcovers become dresses, the chairs themselves are folded into attaché cases and the table morphs into a skirt.

This technical wizardry was designed to express refugees in flight, camouflaging their possessions. The collection was inspired by events in Kosovo and by Chalayan's childhood memories. Other ideas are even more dense and intense - such as an apparently simple collection of summer clothes in fabric patterned with historic and current images of Cyprus. In fact, Chalayan had started the collection by testing his own DNA to verify his family roots and tree.

"I am not a big fashion person - I see Hussein very much as an artist," says van der Zijpp. "I find striking that his many interests are executed on video, garments and a series of photos. He is very articulate."

The curator says "we have talked and talked," describing the three-year process from van Twist meeting Chalayan at the White Cube art gallery in London through tea at the Louvre with Chalayan's ever-present mother and aunt.


For a decadelong body of work there are perhaps too few clothes, although dresses made from balls of tulle, snipped like topiary, give a glimpse of an organic side that offsets the rigid, technical pieces.

"It is editing," says van der Zijpp. "Cutting is difficult in a first show. You have to kill your darlings."

Some shows are expressed in photos, such as the 2003 "Ambimorphous," when patches of ethnic Turkish embroidery appeared and faded on a series of black dresses.

Chalayan says that what is displayed at Groninger is also a response to the space itself. So a moth wing of a dress from the 1994 graduation show, buried in the ground with iron filings to create an organic destroyed effect, is at the top of curving stairs; while a soaring loft is home to the Nicosia garden that is a key element in Chalayan's first free-standing store in Tokyo.

"I work with the space all the time," says Wilson, who has been at Groninger for 10 years. "It should be serious fun - a sense of who Hussein is and what he does, but also an enjoyable experience."


A visitor might be entertained - yet wonder how these conceptual clothes ever make it into a woman's wardrobe. There are few of the wearable versions of the monumental pieces and none of the best-selling secondary line. But van Twist is adamant that the exhibition required only the cutting-edge elements.

"In the long term, a museum has to make these kind of choices," he says. "We are not a shop."
 
Sounds good doesn't it? Guess I will have to travel to the North of my country asap!
 
Went to the exhibition and have had several days to digest...so here goes...

I liked it. But it wasn't entirely without problems.

The Suzy Menkes article that nqth posted gives a pretty accurate assessment: this exhibition isn't really so much about clothes as it is about concepts. I was pretty surprised by the dearth of the actual clothing on display - for the most part only the most spectacularly unwearable signature HC pieces were present - but found it refreshing. Imo the curators made a wise choice by limiting the inclusion of garments to ones that actually look like they belong there...I mean, in a museum. Too often at contemporary fashion exhibitions, I feel like I'm stuck in some sort of maddening perverse boutique where nothing's for sale (not to mention annoyed by the fact that I paid admission to see a bunch of clothes that were hanging in shops the year before). When the frocks on display are remote-controlled aeroplane dresses and the like, that isn't really an issue.

In place of rows and rows of clothes, the exhibition offers photographs and, most importantly, videos: in addition to full length videos of 3 shows (S/S 2000, A/W 2000, S/S 2001), plus most of the videos HC produced for runway presentation and such, there are 2 short films, "Place to Passage" (the pics Lena posted are from this one) and "Anaesthetics." These are imo the defining elements in the show. Both are visually stunning and somehow manage to be both cryptic and articulate at the same time (actually I think that might be a good way to describe Chalayan's clothing, too). In the catalog there's a quote by HC wherein he compares making films to doing the "ultimate fashion show," and watching these, it's easy to see what he means; it's like seeing all the complexities and emotion that he tries to communicate in his shows distilled into a pure, intense visual environment.

I think the exhibition's greatest strength lies in its articulation of the recurring themes HC deals with: technology, migration, cultural identity, violence. It's actually pretty astonishing how powerfully they come across, because I think a lot of Chalayan's concepts can be extremely opaque, even after he's explained them. That's not to say that it was at all explicit; Suzy Menkes called the museum's approach "didactic," but I don't really agree. Beyond the obligatory opening blurb on the wall at the entrance, there was no explanatory text. Instead, the work was pretty much left to speak for itself, and the ideas weren't so much communicated as experienced, with one element of the show informing the other. The result is that the entire exhibition is imbued with a very serious - even melancholy - atmosphere. It definitely had a strange effect on me...I found myself getting very emotional at times...even started crying a bit during the A/W 2000 video, at the "table skirt" part :ninja: (but then, I'm something of a Chalayan sycophant - most rational humans probably won't have the same problem)

Also worth mentioning: If you've never seen the Groninger Museum, its architecture is pretty much postmodern kitch turned up to 11 - multicolored walls, no right angles, etc. As you can imagine, it's not the ideal environment for every exhibition, but I thought it complemented Chalayan's aesthetic quite well. They obviously put a lot of thought into integrating the displays with the interior. The section installed in the Coop-Himmelblau-designed extension (a super-deconstructivist glass and steel structure) was particularly impressive.

Drawbacks: the clothes are displayed on tacky cheap-looking mannequins with frozen deer-in-headlights facial expressions. I was also bothereded by the fact that not all of HC's collections were represented. I understand the need to trim an exhibition like this down to a reasonable size, but it seems odd that a ten-year retrospective of a designer's work should omit some years altogether. Except for one of the buried dresses, there was no work from before 1998, and strangely enough, nothing from S/S 2002 (the "Medea" collection, one of my favorites, grr).

Not exactly a problem, but something to take into consideration: the show is long. If you take your time at each display and watch all the videos in their entirety, it takes at least 3 hours to get through the whole thing, and that's not including the additional videos available on PC (all the shows from S/S 1998 - S/S 2005, plus some extras). So you have to give allow yourself a lot of time to view the whole thing; I was still plowing through the material on the computers when they called closing time :( ).

Biggest problem: they hadn't finished installing the show yet! There was at least one display that was clearly not done; empty mannequin stands, scaffolding shoved in the corner, etc. Not very professional, to say the least. :angry: Presumably they've finished it by now, but man, what a drag...
 
Oh yeah, the book: it's good, but I was expecting a bit more...it provides a decent overview, but imo could use a lot more content (i.e. pictures). Some interesting essays though, particularly Ted Polhemus' contribution, "The Postmodern Designer."
 
oh goodie...a firsthand account...unfortunately...i'm exhausted right now...
so i will havfe to read it when i am more coherent so i can fully appreciate it...

but thank you so much droogist...what a treat!!...:heart:
 
well..i couldn't resist...so i popped a couple of chocolate covered coffee beans and read through...


what a great overview...thanks again droogist...

actually....i can understand why you would get a little teary over the table/skirt...that is a serious fashion 'moment'...i never get tired of that piece...what a landmark collection...i am also surprised that they didn't include a bit from each of his collections...that would seem like an obvious choice...but i understand your point about how so many fashion exhibits are disappointing because the clothes aren't real 'stand outs'...sounds like a wonderful way to spend the day...

lucky you...:flower:
 
softgrey said:
well..i couldn't resist...so i popped a couple of chocolate covered coffee beans and read through...


what a great overview...thanks again droogist...

actually....i can understand why you would get a little teary over the table/skirt...that is a serious fashion 'moment'...i never get tired of that piece...what a landmark collection...i am also surprised that they didn't include a bit from each of his collections...that would seem like an obvious choice...but i understand your point about how so many fashion exhibits are disappointing because the clothes aren't real 'stand outs'...sounds like a wonderful way to spend the day...

lucky you...:flower:

2nd! It was simply in another dimension.
 
ah thank you so much droogist for overview. i understand what it is like to get emotional at stuff like that...to be honest, most of the art i have been looking at lately is fashion such as comme des garcons, junya etc...and it is incredibly moving! it is exciting what he achieved through that collection...it wasn't a fluke. even though his fashion is very escoteric...his actual garments are so wearable and simply innovative there is no need for explanation. i would like to see him successfully merge his ideas with these ready to wear garments..i think that is whats missing so far.
 
Thank you so much. What a great review and delightful reading:-)
 
You're very welcome, everyone. :flower:

And thanks for not making my feel like a wanker for crying at fashion show videos. :lol: The tears were still pretty unexpected though, because I'd seen the video of that show before, and the photos more time than I can count. That's why I said that it was a result of the atmosphere; it was like all those layers of meaning built up inside until - waterworks.

Another thing I should mention, for any prospective non-Dutch visitors: the Netherlands is pretty tiny, but Groningen is located way at the very tippy-top of the country. It is not easy to get there. From Amsterdam it probably takes about 3 hours. If you live way at the other end of Holland like I do, it's a dreadful, mind-numbing, butt-paralyzing four and a half hour train ride. Just something to keep in mind.
 
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a little off the thread but does anyone know about the dress he has displayed at the v and a that was apparantly buried?
 
travis_nw8 said:
a little off the thread but does anyone know about the dress he has displayed at the v and a that was apparantly buried?

That was a part of his final project before he graduated.
 
droogist said:
You're very welcome, everyone. :flower:

And thanks for not making my feel like a wanker for crying at fashion show videos. :lol: The tears were still pretty unexpected though, because I'd seen the video of that show before, and the photos more time than I can count. That's why I said that it was a result of the atmosphere; it was like all those layers of meaning built up inside until - waterworks.


:lol:...i guess you didn't see my post about crying over carpe diem and linea...and that was just in a store... :rolleyes: :D ...
i'm just glad i'm not the only one who is affected this way by some clothing...
 

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