Like the difference between Autumn/Winter '94/'95 and Spring/Summer '95 (In collaboration with Peter Eisenman)

1995


Commissioned by The Architectural League of New York and Minetta Brook as part of a larger exhibition entitled "Architectures of Display," which included projects installed in five non-art sites in SoHo, New York, this project looks at the institutional differences and similarities between fashion and art.


The form inserted into the Comme des Garcons store on Wooster Street in Soho, New York, was derived from overlaying the outlines of two dresses from the two fashion seasons referred to in the title, and "morphing" a form from the differences between these two outlines. In this way, the resulting form materializes the commercial demand that fashion to reinvent itself stylistically every six months, and echoes the less overtly articulated demand for novelty in art and architecture styles.


The morphed form (rendered in skeletal structure) was divided down the middle to allow for a corridor through which shoppers entered the store (the only available access during the installation). The cultural and commercial demand for constant change is inverted by the neighborhood context of the store, a landmarked historical neighborhood where none of the existing architecture can be altered.


In addition to the form inserted into the store, the project also comprised a poster documenting the landmark neighborhood, a brochure, and a video of the two seasons' runway shows superimposed on each other, sound and image.


(wood structure, dimensions variable; poster, video loop)

[ Please contact artist re: viewing video.]


Selected Bibliography

"Kunst Mode Architektur - Entfaltungen und Begrenzungen. Zu einem Projekt von Silvia Kolbowski und Peter Eisenman für Comme des Garçons," by Theresa Georgen. Frauen Kunst Wissenschaft, No 40, December, 2005

"Comme la différence entre automne/hiver 94/95 et printemps/été 95, Peter Eisenman et Silvia Kolbowski," by Catherine Queloz. Faces, Journal d'architectures, n°39, automne 1996, p. 58-62

"Like the Differance Between Art and the Commodity; Like the Differance Between a Life and a Lifestyle. Silvia Kolbowski and Peter Eisenman's 1995 Project with Comme des Garcons," by Christopher Townsend, in Fashion on the Edge (SUN Publishers/Artez Modelectoraat, Amsterdam, 2004)

"Mesa Vanguardism and Soho Alterations," by Joshua Decter, Flash Art 185 (November/December), 1995

"Just Looking," by Henry Urbach, The Village Voice (June 6), 1995

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