I love fashion exhibitions. They present the world of fashion for what it is – an art form. It is an opportunity for the designer to throw caution to the wind when it comes to practicality of clothes and to explore the limits of what is possible, to entice us into a magical world, to evoke the sense of unimaginable and the fantastical. Then drape the unimaginable, fantastical creations around the human form and parade it through a dream world that removes us from reality and celebrates creativity. That is the appeal of fashion – it has the power to turn us into an artwork, experiencing the vision of the designer as if we find ourselves in an artwork. Touching, seeing, smelling, feeling.
Welcome to the world of Iris van Herpen and the current GOMA exhibition “Sculpting the Senses,” devised from an exhibition presented at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs. This exhibit explores the designer’s relationship with the elements of the natural world and the way a human body moves. Water, air, foliage, earth, rugged branches… the organic line that is repeated over and over and over again, just as it is in the natural world. A wonderful touch to this exhibition is the continuing mirror strip that follows every display, every garment, giving a sense of walking through a landscape filled with watery surfaces. The evolution of the living organism persists in this exhibition from start to finish, with each room dedicated to a particular aspect of the living world. Van Herpen’s work reaches into the infinity of the cosmos, the origin of life, the intimacy of the human body, and even old manuscripts, such as the collection of biological drawings by the German zoologist and evolutionist Ernst Haeckel.
“I often get inspired by materials that I cannot work with,” says Van Herpen. You will see a dress made of glass, resulting from a collaboration with glassblower Bernd Weinmayer, and gowns made of heat-molded waves of PETG (a type of thermoplastic polyester) manipulated using metal tweezers. Remember the mouse with a human ear grown on its back? Here we have a gown with what looks like a human ear as part of its construction. A sense of organic permeates throughout the exhibition, with every gown, every dress feeling like it fits perfectly into the natural world, like it grew in the woods, came out of the water, raised from the sand, and materialised from the wind, or evolved from the DNA of a living thing. Fashion here feels, breathes, trembles, and moves to its own heartbeat.
“Sculpting the Senses” is a unique opportunity that widens Brisbane’s cultural scope yet again, exposing us to artists whose work is too far removed from us geographically. 130 garments and accessories exclusive to Brisbane – what a joy to see this wonderful amalgamation of art forms right here on our doorstep! If you have not yet seen this exhibition, it runs until the 7th October at GOMA.
