ACTION AT SEAMLESS, YBCA

In conjunction with the Bay Area Now exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a fashion show was planned in which exhibiting artists would be paired with “up and coming” fashion designers. One of these artists was Kenneth Hung.

At this time the rhetoric was heating up for an invasion of Iraq, and the UN council was reluctant to give in to the Bush Administration. The petrol giant, Chevron was a sponsor of the show. Kenneth’s first idea was to disrupt the show by rolling a 50 gallon oil barrel filled with blood down the runway. The collaborator assigned to him was resistant to any form of disruption, but finally settled for a Ronald Maodonald to be carried in on a huge cart of Freedom Fries, carried by a team of George W. Bush.
As far as any action that would happen, his collaborator was clear that it would have to be done independent of any association of her. What indeed happened then was that when she came down the runway, about six people dressed as terrorists chanted antiwar slogans, coming from above the event, and dropped the following fliers (see right) to participants and audience below, in the manner of the fliers the U.S. military would distribute by air in Afghanistan

                                 

A FASHION SHOW

 

On the eve of yet another war IN OUR NAMES! Ever since September 11, the United States struggles to find a way for life to go on as always, in spite of a war of terror being waged upon us by our own government and media over an ideology of Luxury and Privilege. For our blissful slumber to continue it appears that a sacrifice of volumes of Arab blood must be shed.

 

         IDEAS FOR A FASHION SHOW MORE APPROPRIATE TO OUR TIMES

  1. Parade Persian Gulf War vets down the runway, with an interrogator trying to force them to remember what they cannot because of the affects of the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome.
  1. UN Soldiers strip Third World citizens of their indigenous clothing, which they then deposit on one huge pile reminiscent of those found in the German Death Camps.
  1. Have an announcer describe the affects of torture on clothing in forensic terms; semen stains on a Burqua after a rape, bloodstains on a polished boot etcÉ
  1. Simply drag dead bodies down the runway.

 

IN OUR NAMES we indict ART as being a mechanism of control as it maintains and glorifies the values of a leisure class.

 

Written about in ARTFORUM

Auctioned by SOTHEBEYÕS

Sponsored by CHEVRON

 

WAKE UP!

 

Summary of Action;
Because of inability to agree on an action, and differing levels of investment in the fashion show itself, the combined effect of the planned costume presentation and the planned disruption was one of spectacular enhancement of the event itself. Rather than disrupt the event, we made it better. While the fliers may have caused some consternation among some, and gave pause to think among others, in the end it was recuperated as performance, leading to reaffirm that affective action must maintain a stance OUTSIDE to remain articulate.

Click here to visit the official site with pictures and description.