This article employs the theoretical framework of contemporaneity to investigate the practice of German avant-garde fashion designer Bernhard Willhelm. Political philosopher Giorgio Agamben and art historian Terry Smith’s theorizations on the contemporary are examined alongside fashion theorist Ulrich Lehmann’s reading of Walter Benjamin’s concepts of Tigersprung (a tiger’s leap) and Jetztzeit (now-time). Heterogeneity, disjunction and non-linear historical time are concepts manifested through sartorial remembrance in contemporary fashion. To illustrate these ideas, this study focuses on Willhelm’s articulation of contemporaneity through the quotation of folk dress, cross-cultural borrowing and decontextualization. In so doing, a concept of history can be derived, whereby multiple narratives exist simultaneously, merging past, present and future.
IN SEARCH OF EXPO 67
Curated by Lesley Johnstone and Monika Kin Gagnon, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, 26 June – 1 November 2017
SARA BERMAN’S CLOSET
The Met Fifth Avenue, New York, 6 March – 26 November 2017
OFFSHORE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE SEA
Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Maritime Museum, Hull, United Kingdom, 1 April – 28 August 2017
56 ARTILLERY LANE
Curated by Amy Budd and Naomi Pearce, Raven Row, London, 21 April – 11 June 2017
LEARNING FROM ATHENS
Documenta 14, curated by Adam Szymczyk (along with Pierre Bal-Blanc, Hendrik Folkerts, Candice Hopkins, Hila Peleg, Paul B. Preciado, Dieter Roelstaete, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Monika Szewczyk), Athens, 8 April – 16 July 2017
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD: GET A LIFE!
Curated by Alex Krenn, chi K11 art space, K11 Art Mall, Shanghai, 20 December 2016 – 28 February 2017
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