Galery

1

We address everyone with this exhibition, regardless of age or occupation. Because it applies to issues of visual culture, it examines the ways in which we connect with the world and other people through art and fashion, and how we manage our identity or perceive the identity of others. This is an understandable and interesting exhibition for everyone.

What is the purpose of the exhibition? What is your message for the public?

For DESTE Foundation the exhibition is part of its overall policy in the field of art, as mentioned previously. The outspoken view of cultural expression and structure, their direct connection with everyday life, the look at history and the conditions of modernity are the interests that have led to the realization of this exhibition. The relations between DESTE and the Benaki Museum that has also expressed its relevant research curiosity through other exhibitions of clothing and its meaning, has also played an important role. We offer visitors a topic and its possible interpretations whereas the curatorial approach to the presentation provides more incentives to ponder over this issue.

Curators of the presentation of the project at the Benaki Museum Nadia Argyropoulou, Mark Vasiyuota and Adam Bavdlar have undertaken to present the submitted exhibits and the specific nature of this unique collection. The exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" emphasizes the active connection of people with art and fashion as well as the data added to it by the present age because of its speed and hybridity. The exhibition makes choices that do not exceptionally belong either to the exhibition dictionary of art, or to that of fashion.

A system of uprights displays both the projects by the artists and the fashion items thus composing an unconventional presentation approach. Moving parts of metal chains are consistently deleting and rewriting the boundaries between the objects. The chains are coming to life, actually dividing the space between fashion and art, they are uncovering and blocking the view while going around a series of connections at the same time, such as Art, Fashion, Art and Fashion, Non-art, Non-fashion. The size of the body that is used in fashion is based on a standard number (2), from which the important dimensions of the neck, chest, thighs and hips have been borrowed. The entire figure of the window doll is limited within these dimensions and is divided between adjustable points. Referring to the special dolls used in the tailoring industry but also to the traditional ones used in mass sales, the equipment at the exhibition shows the body, wandering between the exceptional diversity and standardization. Due to the awareness of the structural role of magazines and other print media in the field of fashion and art, each destefashioncollection project includes its own edition and presents it as a message or inserts in lifestyle or special content magazines. These editions are the only elements published on the wall of the building and they play with the concept of "value distribution" and "validity" on the museum wall. They appear again in a special reading room, along with the periodicals that have already circulated from reader to reader with messages about curatorial practices and the selections for each capsule. The exhibition is connected with the atrium of the museum through the uncovered windows, thus encouraging the double look, from the outside and vice versa, stressing the importance of public space in the theme.

What is the purpose of the internet platform? Do you show there parts of the exhibition?
 
The online, collective, "do it yourself" experimental project has been triggered by the exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8". Each participant - ordinary individuals with different views and experience in the fields of art, fashion, style, life and visual culture - takes elements from the eight capsules of the exhibition and perceives them both as a kind of clothing and mysterious works of art. In this way, the short films of the project make up a kind of a gazette that plays with and teases fashion obsessions and stereotypes of art, raising questions about the style, identity and experience of time. The platform is named www.destefashioncollection1to8.gr.

What are your plans for the future?

We hope to present the exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" and some additional elements of the destefashioncollection project abroad. In addition, the preparation of a catalogue with many additional elements about the research and its participants is underway too.

All interested can visit the exhibition until 26 October at Benaki Museum on Piraeus Avenue.