From Givenchy to Yeezy: Why is Fashion Collaborating with Performance Artists?
Face masks by Pat McGrath at Givenchy Spring 2016 in New York. (Photo: Getty)
At Spring 2016 New York Fashion Week, Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci and Yeezy’s Kanye West collaborated with performance artists Marina Abramović and Vanessa Beecroft, respectively. They transformed their catwalks into surreal installments where the clothing — and models — were only part of the theatrics. Both Beecroft and Abramović paired their cutting edge work with fashion and pop culture. Two years ago, Jay-Z filmed his “Picasso, Baby” music video at Abramović’s “The Artist Is Present” at Pace Gallery in New York City. In 2005, Beecroft placed human fashion models on the shelves next to bags on the opening of the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Marina Abramović in “The Artist is Present” at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010. (Photo: Getty)
“This isn’t new by any means, “ Dr. Michael C. Fitzgerald, Professor of Fine Arts at Trinity College tells Yahoo Beauty. “Andy Warhol was collaborating with fashion and pop culture icons in the ‘50s at his Factory.” And the late Ingrid Sischy, former editor in chief of Interview (which Warhol founded), was the first person in the media to see the direct connection — and tension — between fashion and art. She put Prada in Artforum and covered it as she would have covered a De Kooning opening. But these two latest performances at New York Fashion Week stem from a decades-old tradition of artists collaborating with the more glamorous-seeming fashion industry, of teetering the line between capitalism and expression.
Givenchy Spring 2016, art directed by Marina Abramović. (Photo: Getty)
At Givenchy’s first show in New York City, designer Riccardo Tisci invited Abramović — one of his best friends — to create a series of live performances, enhanced by state-of-the-art virtual reality technology to record the entire show and eventually share it to streamers on the web. The September 11th fashion show was set on Pier 26, providing a clear view of the World Trade Center, and featured llamas, musicians performing on ladders, Serbian folk singers, jeweled face masks designed by Pat McGrath, and rarely seen celebrities like Julia Roberts (who is the face of the Givenchy currently). There were two raised platforms: a man and child standing on one of them, facing the Freedom Tower, and a man getting hosed down on the other one. Critic Cathy Horyn notes that this was meant to symbolize “the bath as cleansing.”
Yeezy by Kanye West Spring 2016, art directed by Vanessa Beecroft. (Photo: Getty)
At Kanye’s West semi-surprise show for his label, Yeezy, styled by Vogue Australia fashion director Christine Cetenera, he collaborated with Beecroft for a second time in orchestrating the models. Beecroft’s pieces have merged the worlds of modeling and art since her early days — the primary material of her work is the (usually) nude female figure, oftentimes forced to pose in stilettos for hours at a time, straddling the line between torture and glamour. “Our anxiety, then, does not arise from the fact that naked women are near to us, but from the unbridgeable, yet ill-defined distance between ourselves and them. It is not the anxiety of desire, but the anxiety of displacement,” wrote critic Dave Hickey. Like West, her work, heralded as brilliant by many, does not go without plenty of criticism — in 2011, she came under fire for the lack of payment and harsh treatment endured by her models, who worked four days straight in the nude for the performance. In this collection of Yeezy, the diverse ensemble of models stood in grid formation in their military jackets. West was inspired by the 2011 racially-charged London riots. The first row was pale and blonde models — the last row was dark-skinned models. Instead of falling into the excuses of designers saying they “don’t see color” when they cast models (and consequently casting an almost all-white show), West forced the star-studded audience (including Anna Wintour) to confront their stereotypes and categorizations by dividing the models up by skin color. And yet, while both designers worked with famous performance artists to transform their shows into social commentary, unlike her applause for Tisci’s Givenchy show, Horyn said West was “fooling the fashion world.”
Vanessa Beecroft’s “VB48″ at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. (Photo: Getty)
It’d be easier for everyone, critics and non-critics, to look only at the clothing in a vacuum and ignore who or where or how or at what price they are wearing them, but Tisci and West touched on a nerve this past fashion week: they dared to be something more than haute couture designers or music superstars, and they dared Hollywood and fashion’s elite to sit in the front row and not just watch, but also listen.
Related:
Pat McGrath Makes a Statement at Givenchy
How the Kardashians Became Fashion Week A-Listers
Julia Roberts: ‘I Can Smile or I Can Not Smile, But I Can’t Perform’
