Final Project Proposal

Event Blog 3

            On Friday May 29, I visited the Fowler Museum to see the Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem exhibit by Vivan Sundaram. This exhibit really made me think about the two cultures in a new way. There was the high fashion feeling and look of the clothing, but up close you see what the clothes are made of whether it’s old red bras, old purses, or tires. Each piece focused on one material, but the whole theme flowed well moving from piece to piece. The idea of using things that were thrown away or medical equipment felt very sad to me because most of the ensembles did not look like Sundaram had to go to great lengths to clean them. This was good for him I suppose, but also speaks volumes about our culture and how we are so consumer driven and throw away perfectly good products just to get a new and, or better one.

            Vivan Sundaram said, “You could say there was a violence here because if you use [trash] and make clothes out of it then there is an anti-aesthetic in it” (Butalia). As I was going through the exhibit I was really looking for a word to describe the clothing, and after watching the film by Pankaj Butalia I knew anti-aesthetic was the word I was looking for because the clothes took on a form of their own and became more than the simple discarded objects that created the garment, but in some sense a beautiful attraction from a distance and an intriguing and surreal piece of art up close. The postmortem pieces are really what brought the science into the exhibit because he used mannequins that were cut open and paired it with medical educational tools which added a strange, but complete expression to the figures he created. I would recommend this exhibit to anyone who is currently in Los Angeles because it is always fascinating to see other’s visions and statements regarding our culture is this way.

Works Cited:

Making Strange: Gagawaka Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram. Perf. Vivan Sundaram. Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2015. Film.