Week 3 Hussein Chalayan

Q1.Chalayan is an artist and designer, working in film, dress and installation art. Research Chalayan’s work, and then consider these questions in some thoughtful reflective writing.

1. Chalayan’s works in clothing, like Afterwords (2000) and Burka (1996) , are often challenging to both the viewer and the wearer. What are your personal responses to these works? Are Afterwords and Burka fashion, or are they art? What is the difference?Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion?

A1.Different people have different opinions about the burka and are usually very strong with there opinion about them. I personally do not have a problem with the burka and think that it is something that should be respected if women who are Muslim wear this garment. I think understand why people do not support the wearing of the burka as it would be a very different and difficult experience to be around and to even wear.
I find this work a little bit insensitive in the way that the women is naked wearing the burka but I understand the point that the artist is illustrating, I would say the fashion is art, it is something that is created an idea and something you can look at think about admire or dislike this is what makes something art to me. Fashion is something that you wear, fashion is a certain trend or style.

Hussein Chalayan, Burka, 1996

                                                                 Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000

Q2. Chalayan has strong links to industry. Pieces like The Level Tunnel (2006) and Repose (2006) are made in collaboration with, and paid for by, commercial business; in these cases, a vodka company and a crystal manufacturer. How does this impact on the nature of Chalayan’s work? Does the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products? Is it still art?

 A2.I think that it just makes it commercial art, I don't think that it makes the work any less art. I would be a good way to get your work and name known fast and by many people. Although they would have to alter certain ideas to make it right for the company it would still be worth it.

Q3. Chalayan’s film Absent Presence screened at the 2005 Venice Biennale. It features the process of caring for worn clothes, and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. This work has been influenced by many different art movements; can you think of some, and in what ways they might have inspired Chalayan’s approach?

Hussein Chalayan, still from Absent Presence, 2005 (motion picture)

Q4. Many of Chalayan’s pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else; for example, sculptor Lone Sigurdsson made some works from Chalayan’s Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now (2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in art it remains unexpected. Work by artists such as Jackson Pollock hold their value in the fact that he personally made the painting. Contrastingly, Andy Warhol’s pop art was largely produced in a New York collective called The Factory, and many of his silk-screened works were produced by assistants. Contemporary, Damien Hirst doesn’t personally build his vitrines or preserve the sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?

A4.When someone is designing something as amazing as the work of Hussein Chalayan I think that it is okay for them to get someone else to do the actual making of the work. Or even for most designers, it is not necessary for them to do all of the hands on work. I think it is a little bit different with someone like damian Hirst who would call himself an artist but doesn't actually make alot of his work, I guess if people have seen pieces of work that he has made himself that were good then it shows he is legit, and  so the thought of having a pieces of his art work that is his idea is satisfying enough for some.

http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/hc.html