‘Fashion was the thing itself – the “new,” the heart supposedly, of what was desired. By the outbreak of World War I, it was taking several forms, including outrageous “royalty” promotions, the fashion show, and the fashion extravaganza. In 1913 Rodman and John Wanamaker presented what was perhaps the most impressive early fashion spectacle of them all: The Garden of Allah.’
Richard John Jones, in association with Josh Love and Carlos Monleon Gendal, re-launches this diverse project with a contemporary fashion extravaganza featuring the launch of a t-shirt homage to Picasso’s Women of Avignon, a sculptural recreation by Love, and a presentation from Monleon Gendal all to a soundtrack of Chicago juke music mixed exclusively by Ximon Tayki.
Inspired by a narrative of intellectual copyright in the face of orientalism and the large scale western appropriation of other cultures, the event showcased new appropriated artefacts as an alternative view of how globalisation and American capitalism has managed to isolate cultural artefacts from their multiplicity of meaning to mere representations of the ‘other’. New Display Strategies, rich masterplans that can sustain complex and successful institutions, is an umbrella term for an enquiry into collaborative practices and authorship and the politics concerning institutions, the presentation of cultural artefacts and the different narrative constructions of histories and cultures that are created around their display.