What Artists Wear

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very non offensive for your conservative grandma to read *coffee book table? Christmas gift? Is it trying to be “A-political”??

The book starts with Louise Bourgeois, goes on to Georgia O’Keeffe, Frieda Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Agnes Martin, and flutters through a panoply of artists up until today. Sometimes going deeper into the matter (as for Bourgeois or Basquiat) sometimes spending just one line on it. The book is eclectic, separated into categories (workwear, denim, paint on clothing, t-shirts, etc.) that are themselves interrupted by little segments on chosen artists.For him “post-minimalism” is in his own words is inexistent category that he equates to “we don’t know how to talk about the artist”, although you look at the exampled work and just see that it was clearly influenced by minimalism (but was not produced in this specific historical period), which is exactly what post-minimalism means According to Porter, the unspoken language of clothes – the intuitive, often mundane, everyday choices made by artists – can send messages that shine a spotlight on our cultural and social landscape. "For the last few decades, artists have been putting themselves at the centre of their work through video, photography and performance in a way that has never happened before," he says. "Therefore, the clothing they wear is right at the centre of the work too. They’re sending signals to the viewer." Artists live a different way. The work of an artist is not office based. It breaks from the rhythm of 9 to 5, weekdays and weekends. It is a continual push for self-expression. Artists create their own circumstances, their studios becoming self-contained worlds. Their work can question, or it can reinforce, generally accepted ways of being. What artists wear can be a tool in their practice. Their clothing can tell of their desire for another mode of living or, some- times, their conscious subscription to the status quo. Artists are often revered for their style. I have friends who pin photographs of artists around their mirrors as inspiration -snapshots of Georgia O’Keeffe, Barbara Hepworth. Fashion houses regularly plunder these images, copying their outfits as part of the relentless fashion- season cycle. It seems logical that an artist should have an eye for clothing, connected with the visual creativity of their work. When we really look at images of artists, we realize it goes deeper than that. There is more to what artists wear than just an appreciable way with clothing.

He likewise decided to include Marina Abramović in the text and wrote in total 63 words about her and only one sentence about her and Ulay’s clothes “Note too the language of the garments: skirt for her, trousers for him.” That’s the last sentence made out of those total 63 words. Why did he need to include this and where is an an analysis in stating something obvious? I have no answerYou mentioned earlier being excited by those parallels across time and drawing links between artists from different generations. Did that factor into how you approached your research for the book? The tone of voice also has a real clarity to it, and the way the pictures are woven into the text make it very intuitive to read. Were you intentionally trying to make it accessible? You’ve spoken before about fashion criticism being somewhat removed from how people actually wear clothes, because you’re only ever writing about them up to the point of production. Were you curious to think more about what happens when those clothes go out into the world?

Personal and brimming with anecdotes ...Porter explores the intrinsic connections between artists and their choice of clothing with agility, nuance and insatiable curiosity... His diverse curatorial eye holds both geographic and historical breadth -- Dan Thawley * A Magazine Curated By * A fascinating exploration of the clothing worn by the rebels, rule breakers and outliers of the artistic world, and what it means to live in it ... The book defies convention ... Porter's curiosity is infectious * Esquire * On this rail, Porter found, somewhat to his excitement, a tuxedo coat by Lang that had been made for the model Stephanie Seymour to wear in his spring/summer 1999 show, in Paris. But whether flashy or not, for Bourgeois clothes were also repositories of memory. “She wrote again and again that she couldn’t bear to part with them,” says Porter. “In the end, she started using them in her work. A van took them all to her studio – an extreme action for her, the cutting of a chord – and this marked the beginning of an incredibly creative period in her career.” You begin the book with tailoring and end with casual wear—both culturally loaded ways of dressing. Eclectic, invigorating ... the chapters devoted to female artists make for the most fascinating reading, their clothes liberating them by giving them permission to be different * Observer *Charlie Porter wrote it alone, although he is not an art critic, nor a historian, he is a fashion journalist and i think he took too ambitious of a goal or this absolute banger of obviousness that led to nothing “ nakedness has been there throughout art history: just look at the bodies on show in ancient Greek sculpture”. as if no one has ever know that or as if it will later play out in his text (no, it won’t) Reading it really does remind you of Ways of Seeing by John Berger, the feel of the book, the layout of text and image. The question matters because, particularly in the past fifty years, the line between artwork and artist has evaporated. It is especially true for artists who wear clothing as part of performance, and for those who make clothing as part of their practice. This mode of working is incredibly new, in the context of the millennia of mark-making. Many artists turned to performance because they could find no place for themselves within art histories, galleries or critical discussion, often excluded because of gender and/or race. Through performance, they mapped their own territory, claiming a space within which to make very public, very personal, forms of art. A revelatory journey through the wardrobes of modern and contemporary artists, by fashion critic and art curator Charlie Porter, featuring original interviews, as well as over 300 images selected by the author

Some interviewed people are saying themselves „it was not a statement, just what was available and comfortable for work“ At the time, I was writing about catwalk shows where the garments had only been made to wear once and no one had lived in them. But it became more and more clear to me that there were many more interesting things to say about clothing rather than just up to the point of production.Barbara Hepworth photographed in St Ives in 1957 Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images It means, too, that the cliches of writing about artists’ style are sidestepped entirely. “I’m quite pleased that there’s only one mention of Picasso,” says Porter. The beauty of being a fashion critic is that it’s very different from being an art critic or a theater critic. If I were to review the Venice Biennale that just opened, for example, anyone in the world who has the financial means can travel to Venice to see the Biennale. So you’ve got a direct link to something human beings can actually do. The thing about the fashion show is that if I reviewed the Prada show, for example, then in six months’ time, certain pieces from that collection will be produced, but by no means all; with some brands, hardly any pieces that are shown are produced. Maybe one person that reads the review might actually buy something six months later. There is no immediate call to action of any kind with the reader. I also loved it for that reason, but the downside of that is that the garments you’re looking at have very often only been worn by one model, once, in a fashion show. We talk about these garments as if they’ve all been worn, but we’re talking about them in a language which actually is conjecture. I really wanted to think about garments that have been bought and worn and entered into someone’s life and to see what we can learn from that.