"Emotion, Discovery and Illusion: Between Art and Fashion" @ the National Academy

NY, NY, February 1, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Between Art and Fashion

National Academy/Sonia Gechtoff Gallery

"Emotion, Discovery and Illusion: Between Art and Fashion" is a National Academy exhibition examining the forms, colors, and shapes that influence and synthesize the worlds of fashion and art.

Maurizio Pellegrin, Director of the National Academy's Education Programs

5 East 89th Street

New York, NY 10128

On View: February 3rd to 28th, 2016

Monday - Thursday | 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. 

Friday - Saturday | 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.  

Sunday | 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Emotion, Discovery and Illusion: Between Art and Fashion is a National Academy exhibition examining the forms, colors, and shapes that influence and synthesize the worlds of fashion and art.  The show runs from February 3rd to 28th, 2016 and features works by designers from the early 19th century to today, including Christian Dior, Issey Miyake, and Hermès, alongside artworks by National Academicians, new voices, and gifted students of the Academy.  The eclectic selection of fashion items includes antique European gowns, Asian hair pins, brushes, slippers, and robes, plus ecclesiastical cloaks and equestrian garb. Aspects of these materials have served as a direct inspiration for some artworks in the show, while others are conceptually related to fashion. 

Highlights:  

"Sweet Little Sixteen," by MacArthur "Genius Award" winner and National Academician Sarah Tse, is a silk screen portrait of a girl with hot-pink hair, facial tattoos, and an over-sized pupil with a glassy gaze.  The sassy hot-pink collage evokes the energy of  girl power today and hangs juxtaposed to a 19th century garment of Old World male power, a Cardinal’s cassock, withered across the ages from Vatican red into a paler pink. 

Newcomer Tess O’Dwyer’s bronze sculpture “Maternal Instinct” uses the forms and metaphor of safety pins to portray the subject of "mother and child".  This pair of bronze figures has a gold finish not unlike a broach, but the gaping mouths on the skulls of the safety pins are anything but ornamental, as these skeletal forms appear to weep or wail in sorrow.  The scale of the mother figure is that of a human fetus, and the figure of the baby could fit into the palm of one’s hand.  

Nancy Shapiro recycles printed paper into a dapper lady's hat, bringing an elegant eco-friendly western twist to the Japanese tradition of origami.  The wide brimmed "Paper Hat" hovers in the gallery near a 19th century ivory, silk gown, as if Shapiro's headpiece were designed to top off the ghostly gown. 

For some artists, the focus is texture, for others the concentration is the composition, for many symbols abound, while a few play on mass and volume.  Different starting points in fashion lead to similar or newfound aims in art, and vice versa.  

The exhibition is free and open to the public. 

About The National Academy: 

Founded in 1825, the National Academy is the only institution of its kind that integrates a museum, art school and association of artists and architects dedicated to creating and preserving a living history of American art and architecture. To learn more, please visit www.nationalacademy.org. 

Artists, Students, and Designers Featured:

Michelle Bratsafolis – Kathy Cameron – Robert Chabora – Sandra Constantine – Christian Dior—Pamela Dove – Helen Esberg – Marisa Esteban – Peggy Flaum – Paloma Garcia – Michele Rave Grassani– Hermès—Yuko Horiguchi – Melanie Hulse –Youngmi Kim – Betsy Lawrence – Hazel Manheimer – Issey Miyake—Sean McGraw – Tess O’Dwyer – Aya Ogasawara – Yasuaki Okamoto – Marianna Olinger – Jan Pecarka –Michiko Sellars – Nancy Shapiro – Mariana Soares da Silva – Judie Swanson – Sarah Tse – Yuko Uchida – Teresa Waterman.