Event 2: "Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem"

    I visited the "Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem" exhibition by Delhi-based contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram in Fowler museum last week. Just by looking at the name of the exhibition, I don't know what Vivan tries to express, but after I visited by myself, I found out that it is a really interesting exhibition. 
    The exhibition is combined by two bodies of work -- Gagawaka and it is presented in dialogue with Postmortem. Gagawaka is comprised of twenty-seven sculptural garments made from recycled materials and medical supplies to evoke a playful yet subversive relationship to fashion, haute couture, the runway, and the brand. My favorite work is the one called "ziparound" made in 2011. It is a red and green dress made by zippers and cotton fabric. It makes me think about the definition of fashion. Nowadays people are getting used to those delicate and well-made haute couture on T stage using expensive fabric such as fur and jewelry. In most people's opinion, the common definition of fashion of haute couture usually relates to their cost. For example, when actresses attend fashion week, they dress up with luxury and eye-catching apparel that usually customized from Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Burberry, etc., and that will be considered as the fashion of the year. However, people seldom think about that fashion can be also made from material in our daily life, just like the artwork from Vivan Sundaram. It is hard to make any connection between haute couture and our daily use material such as foam cups, surgical masks, x-ray-film, hospital bandages, foil pill wrappings, and more. But Vivan's own fictional brand and line of “strange” haute couture make use of recycled materials and medical supplies to make highly inventive garments. Gagawaka make me rethink about the definition of fashion and the use of our daily materials.
    Also, the way that Gagawaka is presented is thought-provoking too -- It is the theme of Postmortem, a collection of haunting sculptural objects comprised of mannequins, tailor's dummies, wooden props, and anatomical models. Postmortem questions the spectacle of Gagawaka with a wider set of commentaries about the human body and social concerns related to aging and illness. What's the relationship between fashion, model, aging, and illness. It reminds me of the plastic surgery we have talked about during our lecture. People always think flawlessness as beauty. When wrinkle appear, people are anxious and try everything to slow down aging, such as injecting Botox. But what people usually ignore is the beauty of natural growth of human body. The presentation of Postmortem make me think about beauty and illness, pleasure and pain, life and death.
    Bringing these two projects together expands their meanings and aesthetic effects. In Making Strange, Sundaram capture the inseparability of fashion, or clothing, and the human body. All in all, I recommend my classmates to go to this exhibition.

work cited

 "Making Strange: Gagawaka Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram." Fowler Museum at UCLA. Regents of the University of California. Web. 28 May 2015.<http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/making-strange-gagawaka-postmortem-vivan-sundaram>

Vensa, Victoria. "Human Body and Medical Technology: Part 3." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4>.