Artists Meet a White Shirt

by pmaxwell, 6 October 2008

Saturday@Phillips Auction

Reception: October 21, 2008 6-9pm
Phillips de Pury & Co.
450 West 15th St NY, NY 10011

Auction: October 25, 2008 Noon

Artists Meet a White Shirt: Works by Ghada Amer, Vik Muniz and Billy Sullivan created in collaboration with Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa.

Charity Auction to Benefit the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program

In the spring of 2006, art met fashion when Francisco Costa, designer for Calvin Klein, collaborated with artists Ghada Amer, Vik Muniz and Billy Sullivan to create original works to display at the annual Whitney Contemporaries Art Party. Inspired by the archetypal men’s white dress shirt, these unique collaborations between designer and artists transform our notions of what is art and fashion. All proceeds from the sale of these items will benefit the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program.

In response to Western fashion shows which incorporated veils, masks and draped garments traditionally worn by Muslim women, Egyptian-born Ghada Amer created the Fear Dress. As an artist who often uses text and embroidery in her work, Amer integrated definitions of the word “FEAR” into a sheer black textile; Costa used this textile to design the dress. By transforming a traditionally protective fabric to a transparent lace and by using words to attack rigid values, Amer’s Fear Dress engages the viewer with issues of gender and sexuality.

Ghada Amer, Fear Dress, 2006
Lot 191

For more than thirty years, the artist Billy Sullivan has documented New York City’s avant-garde artists and nightlife via photography, illustration and painting. Sullivan’s “Francisco, Missy and Christian 1-5” is a series of drawings and watercolors intimately recording the fitting process of Amer’s Fear Dress on the model Missy Rayder.

Billy Sullivan, Francisco, Missy and Christian, 2006
Lot 190
Working with materials ranging from jelly to caviar and junk to diamonds, Vik Muniz’s photographs explore illusion, or more accurately, delusion. Muniz often recreates historically important paintings in eccentric materials and photographs the results; in doing so, the artist plays with notions of portraiture and memory. For White Shirt, Suit on Hanger, Muniz took his initial inspiration from the basic white shirt and then sculpted a shirt silhouette out of wire. His final artwork consists of a white shirt painted with the wire silhouette, a photograph of the shirt and finally, a Beuys inspired suit painted with barbed wire pinstripes.

Vik Muniz, Diptych: White Shirt, Suit on Hanger, 2006
189

These unique works of art contribute to the Whitney Museum’s on-going mission to champion emerging voices and artistic innovation. The Whitney Contemporaries are a group of young patrons and future leaders who host the annual Art Party in support of the Independent Study Program (ISP). Since 1968, the Whitney ISP has provided a formative setting for students to pursue art practice, curatorial work and art historical scholarship to examine the historical, social and intellectual conditions of artistic production. The proceeds from the sale of these three pieces will benefit the ISP.