Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, *NonPlus*, 2012, collage, drawing, mixed materials onpastel paper. Courtesy of the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.
White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart presents the work of artists engaged with clothing, adornment, and self-presentation to highlight the inventive design, tactical implementation, or sartorial sense by which we multiply and complete our personalities. On view in ICA’s First Floor Space February 6 through July, 28, 2013, this group exhibition takes inspiration from this definition by novelist J. G. Ballard: “Fashion: A recognition that nature has endowed us with one skin too few, and that a fully sentient being should wear its nervous system externally.”
Lynda BenglisBernadette CorporationKaren KilimnikNick RelphGenesis Breyer P-OrridgeDexter Sinister with HalmosAnne-Mie Van KerckhovenErin LelandPaulina OlowskaRammellzeeCarissa RodriguezFrank LutzNader SadekCatherine SullivanScott TreleavenAmy YaoHilton AlsLeif ElggrenIrena KnezevicZoe LeonardWardell MilanSeth PriceFrances StarkInez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh MatadinAura Rosenberg, John Miller & Frank Lutz
Artworks in a variety of media infuse garments with a distinctive sense of pose—the exclusive province of neither the advertisement nor the runway—to stand, statue-like, with an attitude perfumed by immense mediation and an unsteady social sphere. With examples ranging from outlandish costumes to self-published magazines, jewelry to sculpture, performance to painting, this sensibility permeates all fields. Oscillating between branding, self-recognition, sexuality, political uniform, and economic indicator, our adornment always reflects a chosen position in and with society. Told time and time again that ours is a narcissistic age, how do we positively reveal or covertly enact desires before the mirror of our time?
White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, February 6 – July 28, 2013, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media.White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, February 6 – July 28, 2013, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media.White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, February 6 – July 28, 2013, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media.White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, February 6 – July 28, 2013, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media.White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, February 6 – July 28, 2013, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media.
