Violence in creativity

I'd have to apologize for my temporary death online. I've whizzed back and forth the Asian continent in the last 6 days for one of the most intense competition experiences I've ever had, only to bumble into a new school term and looming examinations and confront the icy realism of having to deal with matters of practical consequences alongside matters-in-the-cloud, and a generally very lousy aesthetic environment with worldly negativity floating around like it's nobody's business. And of course I turn to the alternate continuum with alternate people and an alternate energy balance that is the Internet, and for now I've decided that the best way to combat the dreary, almost vulgar lull of it all is to explore the concept of violence in creativity, through a medium that is very close to my heart: fashion. And of course this form of ammunition is not sustainable, because that is the nature of violence, and society is constructed around gravitational spheres such that even the strongest missiles will bend under sheer pressure when met with them. 


I guess I would start with the anti-artist of today's theme. 

And of course there isn't a need to put a face to the name, because, he is after all the wizard, fiction and omnipresence of the fashion industry. What I'd like to bring into focus today is that it is not very difficult to find out what lurks beneath the man himself, the man as an artist, the man's creative identity -because like all brands he unwittingly conforms to certain standards, and as a result his creations lack the luster of violence which characterizes the core and spirit of creation. Where Pablo P. was able to actualize his inner visions with a precision of a shotgun and a provocation that hinged upon the intensity of sexual energy, Karl's rifle, though loaded, remains silent. 

To illustrate my point I have chosen to include a range of sketches that Karl did up in a collaboration with Hogan. Not my favorite of his sketches, but I wanted to see a cohesive collection of sketches -no matter that the strand of cohesion was not strung through his own artistic outlook but was instead secondary to it, the consciousness and ugly awareness that the designs were slated for eventual marketing and sales with another brand with its own set of rules on top of everything. 

Images the courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

The above serves as visual evidence of how Karl's creative process is like an almost jarring composition of frozen music. The dominant melody is one which rings with an almost eerie note of finality -yet staccatos of thought and consideration, the more abstract and less certain bits of an artist's creative process, puncture the piece at odd intervals, the messy script amongst the coordinated color scheme and shades of shadow and background meant to complete. The music which trickles out of the sketches appears almost engineered, as if the designer himself had stopped short right before bursting into a passion of violent improvisation, depriving the piece of its defining characteristics and hence its name. In the same vein, but in a significantly more eloquent and well-written piece by (favorite) fashion journalist Robin Givhan:

For a historian who takes the long view of fashion, Patricia Mears, deputy director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, has little interest in Lagerfeld’s work—even though the Couture Council, which financially supports the museum, honored him in 2010. “It’s not really fashion forward. It’s very derivative. It’s a mishmash of trends ... He draws what he thinks is interesting. There’so no continuum. It can be kind of scattershot,” she says.

The lack of the spirit of a continuum perhaps best sums up why there is a stark void of violence in Karl's work, and the man himself, or at least the public projection and perception of him. Then again, there may not even be a line between those two. Head to the above article to read Givhan's viewpoint, and decide for yourself.


On to the artists whose creations I feel embody the brave, violent soul of creation. 

Meadham Kirchhoff 

Images the courtesy of style.com

This collection was presented with the violent flourish that usually accompanies works of the theatrical tradition. Works of theatre are one of the few that champion the delicate balance between the immediacy of artistic creation and experience -the splinter or creative fraction of a second during which the artist gains the impetus for creation and formulates his artistic vision, as well as the instantaneous and often subconscious response ignited within an audience when introduced to a piece of art- and the maintenance of a continuum of creation, the anchoring of a piece of art, the quality that gave birth to timelessness and variety in interpretation. The collection did just that -as the warrior princesses storm down the runway, the various visual motifs and individuality of the characters seem to shift continuously, bristling with a life fueled by both the artist's and the audience's imagination. 

Vivienne Westwood

Images the courtesy of style.com

While the continuum -the source of violence, originality and truth- of Kirchhoff's collection was the evolution of the unscripted play enacted on the stage of their inner theatres, the quality of it all being that of an unpolished diamond, Westwood managed to retain this excruciating violence in the impeccable, Japanese culture and Baroque era inspired faces of her jewels, and if we were to connect her collection to the aesthetic vibes of a certain physical space it would be that of a performance museum.