Lina Maple at SARCA

Lina Maple at Sarca: Which Came First - The Artwork or The Garment?

It has been said that fashion is an attempt to realize art in living forms. Sometimes the similarities are more conceptual, where it is the ideas, inspiration and intent that draws fashion and art together, and other times, the similarities are more blatant. Being someone who is constantly exposed to contemporary art, I cannot help but make references towards it.

When I first spotted the T-bags owl shirts at SARCA, I immediately associated them with downtown New York artist, Aurel Schmidt, who appeared in last year’s Whitney Biennial and is currently releasing a book of drawings with Pulitzer prize winning poet, Franz Wright. Her work, which questions conventions of beauty by finding the beauty in ugliness, often appropriates cigarette butts, beer cans, trash and debris, but uses exquisite detail and craftsmanship in making these seemingly grotesque things transform into an aesthetically pleasing work of art.

I made a similar connection between Myne’s olive dress and New York based artist, Dalek, whose summer exhibit, “Prism Break,” at the Hurley SPACE Gallery used colorful and repeating geometric shapes to create an optically stimulating environment and uncover the secret abilities of color.

In today’s era, where high fashion is being deemed somewhat of a performance art, solidified by New York Fashion Week’s move last year to Lincoln Center, one of New York’s most reputable artistic depots, it is undeniable that artists are influenced by fashion, just as fashion is influenced by art. The question becomes, which came first?