Since the African-American women Thomas portrays in her paintings are in control and decidedly done up—dressed to the nines and posed in studio spaces full of busy fabrics—there’s clearly an ironic twist in the exhibition title, She’s Come Undone! Thomas’ daring use of color and her obsessive, almost painstaking deployment of rhinestones highlight the pleasures these women take in adorning and displaying themselves. So her exhibition’s title should be read as an exclamation of relish, encouragement, and abandon.

via Mickalene Thomas, She’s Come Undone! - The Brooklyn Rail

Poly Styrene interview 1978 (by chatham43)

i cant believe the interviewer asks her about wearing braces and compares her negatively to Linda Ronstadt. OTOH discusses her approach to style and punk being as derivative as any other genre, which was a big part of her appeal re: not being sidetracked by the more insular ‘uniform anti-conformism’ aspects of punk.

(via Gladys Bentley) a better pic.

Cougar Friends by Jessica Craig-Martin

I first started to take party pictures for a very wealthy New York businessman who wanted a record of his jovial and vulgar drunken office parties. From this work I was hired by Anna Wintour to cover the New York party scene for Vogue.

I feel that a well examined detail can tell the whole story better than a pulled back, general shot of a scene. The angle of a shot can convey the particular combination of levity and anxiety one can feel in social situations. …The photographs that work best for me have a sense of human fragility.

via 20x200 | Cougar Friends, by Jessica Craig-Martin

Grace Jones interview on singers copying her style (by iconic)

Transcript: “I don’t do internet, so a lot of people are going, “look at this, look at this, look at that!”

And um, I don’t mind, you know Maddonna used to come around and watch me. I know, from the back of the audience cos kids would say, “You know who’s here? Maddonna is here and so and so watching!”

But theyre looking, theyre searching for inspiration. So, theres one thing - searching for inspiration - but sometimes when you begin it might not necessarily be her that’s doing it. It could be teh machine around her that’s doing it.

What I would like to say, if I was having a class of you know, upcoming artists, whatever it is you feel to do, DO IT, before you go looking outside yourself, and then from there you can get a true creation.’

Think this is from her Vogue Italia interview.

fyeahfeministart:

Atsuko Tanaka, Electric Dress, 1956

“For Electric Dress Atsuko Tanaka designed a Kimono-like dress out of electrical wiring and painted lightbulbs creating a colourful spectacle. Tanaka began to envision the dress in 1954, when she outlined in a small notebook a remarkably prophetic connection between electrical wiring and the physiological systems that make up the human body. After fabricating the dress she wore it as if taking part in a Japanese wedding ceremony.” Tanaka, by reinterpreting the kimono, was pointing towards the change that had occurred in the traditional Japanese society in the post-war period.

She was part of the Gutai movement in Japan that was a response to the US’ nuclear bombing of her country, and many of the artworks in this movement used the artist’s body as its medium. Electric Dress was simultaneously sculpture and performance and was important in the forging of the tradition of wearable art that would become a staple of feminist art.

Later on, with the feminist movement of the 70s, her work was re-interpreted. In the place of a feminine kimono, Tanaka had covered her body with phallic lightbulbs and a shower of electrical cords. To be a “turned-on” heterosexual woman, then, came at the price of her transformation into an object that illuminates the phallic domain. http://faculty.njcu.edu/fmoran/midoriarticle.pdf

With textile experimentation for more sustainable and interactive garments becoming an emerging niche in fashion design, I’m seeing work by fashion students every month, that seem to reference Tanaka’s work. It’s impossible to gauge whether, or how much, people are aware of Tanaka’s innovation though, because fashion rarely cites influences beyond other high profile designers or general trends.

Regardless of whether many contemporary textile designers were directly influenced by her - i keep wanting to see her Electric Dress acknowledged somewhere in all these ‘hot new design feature/trending now’ articles about energy conducting garments.

sarahdeetz:

This is Lady Pink, one of the only female graffiti artists active in the ’80s. Jenny Holzer, famous for her feminist postmodern “Truisms,” designed this shirt and Lady Pink wore it around NYC. 

always reblog

(Source: deathatitsfinest, via jhameia)

Artist statement from the ‘Frock, Paper, Scissors’ 2010 exhibition by Perth artist Sue Codee, of This Paper Cut Life

I have always been an avid op-shopper. As a young woman in her twenties who was exploring her creative potential, I used to collect vintage dresses and frocks from the 40’s and 50’s, which at the time were easy to find in op-shops. I was attracted to their beauty; their often gracious styles, fabrics and floral designs, and I was able to access another era of femininity in the wearing of them. With motherhood, ‘middle age’, plus the diagnosis of breast cancer in which I am in the middle of treatment, new challenges to femininity arise, and I find myself again attracted to the dress but this time as a potent symbol in my work.

In the “Paper, Scissors, Frock” series I have used the dress as a frame, and in a sense a vessel, in which to contain images of growth, death, life, surrender, and healing, and the internal musings of this particular path on which I find myself. With that playful youthfulness involved in the collecting of those old dresses, that same free spirit is in the making of the papercuts. But a little older and a little wiser. The papercuts play with shadow and spirit. They are crafted around a kitchen table, the centre and heart of the home and family. They are works that deeply resonate with my place in life right now and the knowledge that the feminine will continue to change and evolve over the course of a lifetime.

Sue Codee, 2010

Mambo Taxi “Do You Always Dress Like That …” (via halfsquirrel)

Nostalgia = pointless. Internet facilitating access to cute grrl songs = goodness

“Q:Do you always dress like that, in front of other people’s boyfriends?

A: Well, if you can’t stand to see me like this, why dont you go away!!”

ArtSlant - Pinar Yolacan Rackroom

Pinar Yolaçan:  I think that I do reverse the tradition of making portraits of the religious icons or people of certain classes such as the women in Brazil, whom are considered a minority, the Afro-Brazilian Bahianas.

Obviously one of the main reasons why I named the project “Maria” is because many of my subjects do have the name of Maria, and it is a sign of their inherited Christianity. Yet none of them looked like the classical depictions of “Maria” - nor like contemporary culture icons like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, whom I think are much adored today with their stories of youth, sin, sacrifice, suffering, beauty and child bearing, which is essentially reflecting modern versions of Maria’s much celebrated story. We see more and more women like them in popular magazines today in a society governed by the right wing with Catholic traditions, and in 2008 we live like we are in the Victorian Era or the 1950’s.

Vegan alarm warning: this series is totally disturbing but awesome.

Yolacan found her subjects in regions historically associated with slave trades, then photographed them in gowns that implied aristocratic status despite being made from the body parts of livestock.

Portraiture that embraces and perverts that genres traditional emphasis on beauty and emulating social status - without being all Damien Hirst about it - equals win. 

Art by Belinda Suzette, featured artist at next Sunday’s Brisbane Suitcase Rummage [she does their promo too].

The Suitcase Rummage is a diy arts, crafts, recycled, homewares, whatever market..it’s simple really:

Fill your suitcase with your wares, and travel to our designated spot on the day. Sell your wonderful goods old style. No hassle. No fuss. Good ol’ fashion markets.

Went along to the last one for the upcycled fashion and was excited by how many diy arts women there were too!

I missed out on registering for this Sunday’s rummage,  will go for the October round. If you’re a craftisan in Brisbane, entry re-opens each month, first in first served.

via Suitcase Rummage

via Najy Is A Trip: Queer Couture! Come see my art!

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – August 7 , 2010 – Femina Potens has gathered an impressive collection of artists for your discerning tastes this August. We’re excited to be able to present to you this sexy, fashion-forward, Queerest of Haute-Queer shows!

All month long we bring to you a stunningly off-center multimedia art show that combines the fashionably distinguished photography, couture designs, and textile installations by artists Najva Sol, Molly Crabapple, Mev Luna, Jesse Trepper, Corey Gunter Brown & Cassidy Wright. Come Dress Your Inner Couture with Your Outer Queer amongst these outrageous designs and explore what queer identity and alternative fashion are really about with those that know what Taking it Off and Putting it On really mean.

Having cultural jealousy of anyone in SF right now. Queer Couture, love it!

Lutz and Alex sitting in the trees, Wolfgang Tillmans (1992) | Culture | The Guardian

Reminded of Tillmans famous yet-consenting naked tree model shoot from the 90’s, by the debate going around about whether Terry Richardson is a poor misunderstood artist [no!] or abusing his status as a photographer to be humoured for what’s called sexual harrassment in any other industries workplaces [thats it!].

Respect to Tavi Style Rookie for calling it and being ahead of the hivemind on this one. 

The point isn’t whether sexual content in fashion photography can be OK and consenting.  The point is that being an ARTIST!!! doesn’t negate issues of ethics and consent in the workplace.

If a photographers take on nudity, fashion or explict content is that they can’t help but treat the models lousy and it’s hurtful for them to be reminded about ethics in photography, should they keep being considered to do that type of photography? 

It’s like calling a cab for people who admit that they drink drive after they’ve had 6 vodkas at your party. Richardson isn’t the only one who does it by far, but the whole ‘art = what ethics’ argument ought to be a red flag about who to hire for photography involving young models or explicit content by now.

superflyyarns:3000km:diezimedia:(via geneticmutations)

Arielle De Pinto designs.

threadbared: RIP: Eunice Johnson

Sad news. Eunice Johnson, the legendary co-founder of Ebony magazine and creator of the Ebony Fashion Fair, died this past weekend. From the AP, the Fashion Fair was a “traveling high fashion charity event that showcases black designers and models is staged in nearly 200 cities each year. Ads for the show have featured singer Aretha Franklin, and actor Richard Roundtree made his debut as a model with the show.” More than half a century ago, she created the Fashion Fair Cosmetics line which was designed specifically for the complexions of women of color, advocated for models of color, and discovered Pat Cleveland who is considered the first black supermodel.

NPR just had a short interview with Andre Leon Talley, editor-at-large for Vogue magazine, on his memories of Mrs. Johnson. You can read the transcript here.