Photography, Fine Arts, and Fashion since 1900 | Berlinische Galerie | 18.2. – 30.5.22
Rolf von Bergmann, Run-a-Ways (Serientitel), New York 1979© Berlinische Galerie / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Fashion and art are mirrors of social changes and individual needs. In the collection of the Berlinische Galerie, this theme is present in surprising and diverse ways. In addition to numerous fashion photographs spanning the twentieth century, just as many paintings and drawings testify to the role of fashion as a means of expression and representation of a particular era: from the reform dress around 1900 and the Dada dandies of the 1920s to avant-garde clothing designs in contemporary art.
On this broad basis and with loans of selected pieces of clothing, approximately 270 exhibits shed light on artists’ relationship to fashion. What role has fashion played in the painting, drawing, and photography of the past century? With what rules were clothing and costumes employed in fine art? How did artists dress and present themselves then and now? How is fashion used as a medium in contemporary art?
Fashion in and from Images
Gerd Hartung, Modezeichnung: Paar in Abendrobe, 1932, © Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Foto: Michael Setzpfandt, Berlin
In 1903, Anna Muthesius, the protagonist of the reform movement in Germany, published her text “Das Eigenkleid der Frau” (“Women’s Own Dress”). She rejected the constricting corset of women’s clothing and advocated fashion that followed the natural shape of the body. Muthesius also saw herself as an ambassador with her own clothing.
Particularly in the 1920s, fashion illustrations for the rapidly growing magazine market were an important means of expression and income for women artists. Jeanne Mammen, for example, made a name for herself in the second half of the 1920s with her watercolours depicting society scenes, which illustrate how women presented themselves fashionably on the street, in cafés, or at a masked ball.
The perfect combination of image and dress was achieved in a famous fashion photograph by Herbert Tobias from 1954: Surrounded by war ruins, the model Irmgard Kunde presents a magnificent evening gown by the German fashion designer Heinz Oestergaard, which is exhibited together with the photograph.
In the 1980s, dilapidated buildings were not only backdrops for the self-designed fashion of the artistic bohemians of Prenzlauer Berg, but also liberal places to live – captured in photographs by Sibylle Bergemann, among others.
Artists Wear Fashion
Exhibition view „Images in Fashion-Clothing in Art. Photography, Fine Arts, and Fashion since 1900, Berlinische Galerie, Foto: © Harry Schnitger
In the era of modernism, artists’ clothing was not limited to painters’ smocks. In Berlin in 1929, the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann posed in front of August Sander’s camera in his self-designed “Oxford bags”. Hannah Höch, who worked as a draughtswoman for the handicrafts department of the Ullstein publishing house between 1916 and 1926, created embroidery designs that she also used as motif sources for her collages. The exhibition presents a cross-section of Höch’s work.
In Berlin in the 1980s, it was artists such as Elvira Bach and Claudia Skoda who combined art and self-dramatisation via clothing. The queer photographer Rolf von Bergmann became an important chronicler of the Berlin scene and bequeathed to the Berlinische Galerie numerous items of clothing from his own performances, which are now being staged in the museum for the first time.
Fashion in Contemporary
Exhibition view „Images in Fashion-Clothing in Art. Photography, Fine Arts, and Fashion since 1900, Berlinische Galerie, Foto: © Harry Schnitger
Art Contemporary artists such as Wiebke Siem, Ursula Sax, and Alexandra Hopf, who use clothing as sculptural or performative material, operate within the art system, although they appropriate motifs from the world of fashion.
With her textile objects and installations, Alexandra Hopf interprets historical sources, such as the Constructivist uniform clothing designed after the Russian Revolution by artists such as Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir Tatlin, and Alexander Rodchenko. For the exhibition, the artist realises Raoul Hausmann’s “Oxford bags” as a textile object. This resulted in a study of this garment, its creation, and its use. Alexandra Hopf developed an installation from this, which restages the garment by means of colour, movement, light, and sound.
Artists (Selection): Karl Arnold, Martin Assig, Elvira Bach, Patrizia Bach, Sibylle Bergemann, Rolf von Bergmann, Benno Berneis, BLESS, Erwin Blumenfeld, Tabea Blumenschein, Marc Brandenburg, Hans Peter Feldmann, Lieselotte Friedlaender, Ulrike Grossarth, George Grosz, F.C Gundlach, Gerd Hartung, Bertram Hasenauer, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, K.H. Hödicke, Alexandra Hopf, Astrid Köppe, Käthe Kruse, Juliane Laitzsch, Alyssa DeLuccia, Ute Mahler, Jeanne Mammen, Anna Muthesius, Helmuth Newton, Ulrike Ottinger, Lilla von Puttkamer, Raffael Rheinsberg, Frieda Riess, Ursula Sax, Rudolf Schlichter, Wiebke Siem, Franz Skarbina, Claudia Skoda, Eugen Spiro, Herbert Tobias, Wols, Yva
*Press Release
Berlinische Galerie Berlin’s Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture
Alte Jakobstraße 124–128 10969 Berlin
Tel +49 (0)30 78 902 600 berlinischegalerie.de
Admission 10 €, concessions 6 €
Wed–Mon
10am–6pm
Tue closed
The exhibition has been funded by the Förderverein Berlinische Galerie e.V.
