Press Release

Schaumainkai 17
60594 Frankfurt am Main
www.museumangewandtekunst.de
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Press release
Frankfurt am Main, 16.09.2015
MODE BEWEGT BILD: The Fashion Film Effect
2 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
Press conference: Thursday, 1 October 2015, 11 am, Museum Angewandte Kunst,
within the framework of the opening press conference for the B3 Biennial of the Moving
Image
Exhibition opening: Thursday, 1 October 2015, 8 pm
Fashion is an expression of the times in which it emerges. In view of the fact that there’s
nothing at all unusual about shooting a film clip with one’s smartphone these days and
sharing it with the world public, it’s hardly surprising that designers and fashion companies
have also discovered the medium of the internet clip for their own purposes. Within that
context, the boundaries between the advertising film and neighbouring genres such as the
music video or the art film are becoming ever more fluid.
From 2 October 2015 to 31 January 2016, in the exhibition “MODE BEWEGT BILD: The Fashion
Film Effect”, the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main will be presenting a
selection of seventeen fashion films. What these works have in common is that, in
movement, sound and visual effects they far transcend the boundaries of the advertising film
and other forms of fashion mediation, thus finding their way an entirely new and independent
genre. Each in their own way, they expand the possibilities offered by traditional modes of
fashion presentation such as photography, illustration and the fashion show. At the same
time, our selection will exemplify the countless contemporary productions that all contribute
to the heterogeneity of this phenomenon.
The spectrum of the films to be featured in the show is extremely variegated with regard to
form, content and style alike. Already just in terms of duration, they range from compact
three-minute clips to short films containing quasi-narrative elements and lasting more than
fifteen minutes. Bizarre collages and graphic patterns will transport the visitors into worlds
poetic, absurd and surreal. Alienated, convoluted, computer-animated bodies, fairy-tale to
nightmare-like images, barren landscapes: these are just a few of the motifs. In widely
differing choreographies, an entire series is devoted to the interplay between fashion, dance
and film. Yet the downsides of vanity, wealth and success will also be addressed, and the
show will reflect on the role of clothing as an expression of personality and individuality, and
often even as a form of rebellion against society’s norms and constraints.
Some of the films were produced as image films for dissemination by way of the internet,
others as enhancements to cat-walk presentations or entire replacements for fashion shows,
still others as music videos or artistic short films. They all play out the possibilitie s offered by
the film medium to the fullest, departing increasingly from the actual object ‒fashion ‒in the
process. At the extreme, the film shows no clothing at all, but aims instead to convey the
mood and image of a fashion line or design vision. Just as fashion has always oscillated
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Press release
Frankfurt am Main, 16.09.2015
between merchandise and art object while at the same time uniting the two, the fashion films
featured in our show also rise above their function as pure advertising media, shifting the
focus to categories such as authorship and artistic expression.
“The Fashion Film Effect” – the show’s subtitle is a term coined by the fashion theorist
Marketa Uhlirova – is first and foremost a means of presenting clothing in motion. This intent
is enhanced by the capacity of the film medium to expand fashion’s physical qualities to
include further sensory elements, in which context experimental effects as well as sound and
rhythm play fundamental roles. Particularly the non-narrative fashion film explores the
creative possibilities of both fashion and film. The materiality of clothing is infinitely
exponentiated into an elastic, polymorphous variable.
“MODE BEWEGT BILD” is a parcours partner of the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image 2015.
Entirely in keeping with the biennale theme – Expanded Senses – visitors will experience the
interplay of clothing and the body, sound and digital technology in film clips and multimedia
video installations.
Exhibition blog: www.modebewegtbild.de
Mit / With
anus a rg ah vda Barbara i Gongini, Daniel Arsham/Calvin Klein Collection, Daniel
Askill/Alexander McQueen, Eliott Bliss/Lady Dior, Jamie Brunskill/Alexander McQueen,
Matthew Donaldson/Stephen Jones Millinery, Kevin Frilet rada, Gu mundur
allgri msson/Mundi & 66° North, Ruth Hogben/Gareth Pugh, Mat Maitland/KENZO, Warren
Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones/Iris Van Herpen, Ish Sahotay/Little Boots, Jacob
Sutton/Chalayan, Partel Oliva/KENZO, William Williamson
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Press release
MODE BEWEGT BILD: The Fashion Film Effect
2 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
Director
Matthias Wagner K
Curator
Dr Mahret Kupka, Museum Angewandte Kunst
Location
Museum Angewandte Kunst
Schaumainkai 17
60594 Frankfurt am Main
Information
T +49 69 212 31286
F +49 69 212 30703
info.angewandte-kunst@stadt-frankfurt.de
www.museumangewandtekunst.de
Opening hours
Tue, Thu–Sun 10 am – 6 pm, Wed 10 am – 8 pm
Admission
9 euros, reduced 4.50 euros
Partners
BfFF Berlin fashion Film Festival, AnOther Magazine, tape.tv
Within the framework of B3 Biennial of the Moving Image
Sponsor
Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain
Press contact
Dorothee Maas and Julia Quedzuweit
T +49 69 212 32828/73243
F +49 69 212 30703
presse.angewandte-kunst@stadt-frankfurt.de
Press downloads
www.museumangewandtekunst.de
Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
T + 49 69 212 32828
F + 49 69 212 30703
presse.angewandte-kunst@stadt-frankfurt.de
Frankfurt am Main, 16.09.2015