An upcoming exhibit at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection focuses on fashion and identity in Canada. Guest curated by Julia Pine, Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art, will be on display May 5 to September 3, 2012.As a newly coined term, 'fashionality' combines fashion, personality, and nationality, and refers to the interplay between clothing, identity, and culture. This exhibit looks beyond fashion and also explores the use of apparel and the act of adornment in the work of twenty-three active Canadian artists.
Reflecting wide geographic and cultural diversity, it considers the ways in which the concerns, identities, and personal visions of these artists are expressed, deconstructed, and reconfigured through the shared visual language of dress.
Artists explore a wide range of creative and conceptual possibilities, ranging from painting, assemblage, sculpture and installation, to video, photography, performance, and social media. A thought-provoking, moving, and often humorous mix of technique, technology, and cultural critique, Fashionality contributes to an understanding of what it means to be woven into Canada’s national fabric.
This exhibit features the work of several Canadian artists, including First Nations artists KC Adams, Lori Blondeau, Dana Claxton, and Kent Monkman.
Above image: High-Heeled Moccasins, 2007, by Kent Monkman. Machine loomed beads on vinyl shoes. Photo Brian Brian Boyle, © ROM, 2007