What Artists Wear

Product Information

Your book is not just about what artists wear, but also about how they wear their clothes. I like that you have a whole chapter called Paint on Clothing. A liberation and a joy, beautifully written and brilliantly thought. What Artists Wear is at once a revelatory account of how art is made and an electrifying investigation into the relationship between clothes and autonomy, freedom and power -- Olivia Laing

Charlie Porter: The trigger was a piece I wrote for the Financial Times in 2015 when the Agnes Martin show was on at Tate Modern. I was absolutely captivated by a photo of Martin in her studio in 1960. She was wearing this very rudimentary, functional, quilted clothing, off-white, with diamond quilting—a top and a bottom. It was the garments themselves that I found so compelling. They looked so extraordinarily contemporary. Timely ... intimate ... A leisurely, contemplative journey through the art world of the 20th Century, as shown through the medium of the artists' own clothes. Hypebeast Takes ages to get to the point and is such a general overview - disappointingly un revolutionary (as seems to be the case with this kind of art book but what do you expect 🙄) makes me feel itchy and like I wanna shake the author upside down and scream at themAll change: Cindy Sherman’s Untitled 2008 Chromogenic print. The artist often wears wigs and heavy makeup, and dresses up in clothes from charity shops. Photograph: Cindy Sherman/Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth The book is superficial under the cover of being about art, philosophy and psychology, it’s neither of those things For a moment, Porter looks at my long, striped wool scarf, which is also brightly coloured. “The other thing is that people give themselves pleasure and comfort by putting colour in their field of vision.” Change your hairstyle. Choose a look that will make you stand out in a crowd. Consider these ideas for creating a wild look: Some clothes are utilitarian,” says Porter. “Some are sentimental. Some have to do with the community to which a person belongs, or wants to belong. Hopefully, my book speaks to these things. It’s not interested in best-dressed lists, or in so-called icons, even though many of the artists in it are famous.” Source

Brilliant and unexpected... What Artists Wear approaches fashion in a wholly different way * Showstudio *Porter suggests, then a lens through which to examine how our relationship with clothing shifted over the last century. The book careers through almost every facet of modern clothing, from sportswear to denim, workwear to luxury fashion. Tailoring, in particular, receives significant discussion. “I was interested in suits as a symbol of white male power,” says Porter. “But I was much more interested in what artists did with that symbol.” The tone of voice also has a real clarity to it, and the way the pictures are woven into the text make it very intuitive to read. Were you intentionally trying to make it accessible? A liberation and a joy, beautifully written and brilliantly thought. What Artists Wear is at once a revelatory account of how art is made and an electrifying investigation into the relationship between clothes and autonomy, freedom and power' Olivia Laing Charlie Porter's prose is patient and clean as a bone. His arena of inquiry is simple but endlessly fascinating. It reminds me in many ways of John Berger's Ways of Seeing: public-facing, image-rich, but still incisive. He draws the reader in with questions: "Can you see what's happening here?" "But look, what's there?" I love this kind of art criticism, one that speaks not 'at' an object, but 'to' it, 'with' it. One that circles around an object (in this case, a garment, not an artwork), unravelling its historical conditions, its aesthetic allure, its form, its function, its sacredness, its sentimentality, all in equal measure, as one would unwind ribbons from a maypole.