Sheer Fabrics

While the use of sheer fabrics in fashion is most definitely not a new thing, there was a recent article from the New York Times that made me think about nudity and the runway. Is it simply a matter of the context of the runway versus that of the everyday? It seems a bit ironic because in a way, models are supposedly the most good looking people and are therefore the most sexualized and coveted women, and yet when they walk the runway it's not sexual for them to wear sheer tops, or no tops at all? Is it a matter of small breasts vs larger ones?

I haven't quite made up my mind, but it brought to mind Adel Abdessemed's "Real Time," a thirty second video on a loop of a performance he made asking people from Craigslist to come to the gallery and have sex with each other while visitors watched. It's the same situation of context: sex in a gallery versus sex in a porn. Granted there is a more overt message of voyeurism in the artwork, but I think fashion is also voyeuristic in the way it makes makes it alright to see half nude women.

Oral History

In my research about American printmaking during the 60s and 70s, there is one anecdote that is repeated many many times. It is the story of Robert Rauschenberg's famous lithograph "Accident" (1963) printed by Bob Blackburn at U.L.A.E. The literature says that in the middle of printing, the stone broke. Rauschenberg turned to Blackburn and said something to the effect of, "I like the effect of this broken stone, let's keep printing and see what happens." This event has been hailed by many scholars to show the experimental nature of Rauschenberg in many different mediums, and also that he did something unprecedented in the history of printmaking. As the printing continued the two stones moved farther and farther apart from each other so that no two prints are the same. (No two prints are ever the same anyway, but in this case the difference is more obvious.)

However, in a video from 1976 called "The Print World of Tatyana Grosman," Rauschenberg recounts the story differently. He said that the stone broke the first time, and he re-made the stone because he was unhappy that it broke. Then, it broke a second time. He said, "Once I can take, twice I can't...I said [to Blackburn] you broke it twice you print it that way...I won't let anything be wasted." This is very different from the idealized artist-as-innovator that the literature depicts. The way that Rauschenberg tells the story makes it seem as though he was very upset that the stone broke, and of course, blamed the printer who was simply doing his best to make the stone level as it went through the press. I find this interesting because I think it shows the relationship and attitude between artist and printer as one of the "creative genius" vs the artisan, the craftsman. Further, this discrepancy shows how things get mangled and changed over time.

What kills me a little is that as a child I would go to Bob Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop on Seventeenth Street with my father. I would sit at the side and work on a small plate while my father printed, and then we would go downstairs to have lunch at the tiny hole in the wall restaurant where they served rice with butter and french fries. I met Blackburn many times but he died before I became truly interested in printmaking.