artists who cross dress just for the sake of art
In the last three decades, the women’s and gay liberation movements have helped blur gender roles and expectations as well as fashion options, though artists have been dealing openly with this theme at least since Duchamp, who articulated his love of esthetic and sexual ambiguity with a female alter ego, Rrose Selavy (pronounced ‘’Eros c’est la vie’’ or ‘’Eros is life’’) Rrose Sélavy, the feminine alterego of the late French artist, Marcel Duchamp, remains one of the most complex and pervasive pieces in the enigmatic puzzle of the artist’s oeuvre. She first emerged in portraits made by the photographer Man Ray in New York in the early 1920s, when Duchamp and Man Ray were collaborating on a number of conceptual photographic works. Rrose Sélavy lived on as the person to whom Duchamp attributed specifc works of art, Readymades, puns, and writings throughout his career. By creating for himself this female persona whose attributes are beauty and eroticism, he deliberately and characteristically complicated the understanding of his ideas
The Mona Lisa’s deep-set eyes and round face do not con fict with Duchamp’s act of violence. The beard and mous tache seem a completion. Duchamp said the Mona Lisa becomes a man - not a woman disguised as a man, but a real man. This hints at a different meaning from vandalism, for all the crudeness of those letters, L.H.O.O.Q., whic sound out the French sentence: “She has a hot arse.” Thi is not simply an attack on the mass-produced tourist ico the Mona Lisa had become, but rather an inter-pretation it. Sigmund Freud had psychoanalysed Leonardo’s art and related the artist’s inability to nish his works to the sublimation of his sexual life to art. He also argued th Leonardo was homosexual.
Duchamp’s Mona Lisa is a Freudian joke. Duchamp reveals, in a simple gesture, that which the painting conceals. B this is not merely an allusion to Freud. Duchamp uncover an ambiguity of gender at the heart of Leonardo’s aesthe ic - that Leonardo sees the male form in the female.
This kind of hidden self- portrait is what Duchamp discovers in his recti ed readymade. His Dadaist interventi redeems Leonardo’s masterpiece from the banality of repr duction and returns it to the private world of creation.
Man Ray
Henri deLautrec Toulouse-
Self Portraits of Yasumasa Morimura
Everybody loves a dame. And Morimura just loves to be one! In this series of self-portraits Morimura convincingly slips into the roles of legendary silver screen goddesses, from Audrey Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman (and it doesn’t stop there - he’s also been art historical icons such as the Mona Lisa and Renoir’s busty barmaid!). But Morimura is more than just art’s most famous drag queen. Dealing with issues of cultural and sexual appropriation he is constantly exploring ideas of image consumption, identity and desire: Can Brigitte Bardot be as innocently irtatious with angular Japanese features? Would Marilyn Monroe be as sexy if she was Japanese - and a man? And where does the line lay between Garbo’s neurotic reclusivity and the paranoid expression of the down right freaky? In his photos Morimura lives out his impossible dreams of being ‘other’, playing the role of Asian agent provocateur in ltrating Western collective consciousness: becoming the women most lusted after, making them even more exotic. The Saatchi Gallery of London
Grayson Perry Project, especially shot for I-D Online
Warhol Self-Portraits in Drag, 1981 1982
André Kertész Self-Portrait as a woman, 1921
Cindy Sherman
I justRei want to create someKawakubo thing strong and new: to nd new ways to express beauty
It’s what you decide to pick up you know, I dont think necessarily clothing can be feminine or masculine, i think its just a character J.W. Anderson
J.W. Anderson I feel like that was the idea, a boundary between, not actually between masculinity and feminity but between a male and a female mind if you know what i mean, like homogeneous wardrobe, the idea that clothing is just clothing.It doesnt matter who wears this, its a point of view, you know.its what you decide to pick up you know, i dont think necessarily clothing can be feminine or masculine, i think its just a character
George Platt Lynes Untitled, 1941
This is an impeccably classicized female torso in a 1935 photograph by George Platt Lynes; in the best Surrealist tradition, it comes with an equally idealized male shadow. This untitled work by photographer George Platt Lynes was created in 1941. The performance of gender in this image is achieved primarily through technical manipulation to make the female gure cast a male shadow.
have codes for everything I don’t see why we would n gender, seasons, rules, re ity, age. I think that as extremely programmed. I sp years before starting my [ ing a perfect unisex canva ied on male and female for all codes that can give us erence and from there I st ic forms almost like archi My clothes and everything fashion or art, it’s about which I attract people I s unisex lifestyle - it’s ab less, timeless, slick and Rad Hourani
in our life today and need to divide things by eligion, race, nationala society, we’ve been pent a full year six [couture] line on creatas that has been studrms. I started to delete s a male or female reftarted to sketch graphitect or graphic design. I do are not just about t a global language in see myself in. It’s a bout an ageless, gendermodern world.
Rad Hourani We have codes for everything in our life today and I don’t see why we would need to divide things by gender, seasons, rules, religion, race, nationality, age
“Hedi Slimane told me I was boyish in his eyes. For him femininity and masculinity are the same thing, the difference is not so interesting, he said,� Saskia de Brauw in i-D
Kris Van Assche 2008 The Associated Press “For me, it’s not at all about making menswear more feminine. The whole job is to use these traditions like embroidery and all that, but to make it in a very masculine way.”
I feel like that was the idea, a boundary between, not actually between masculinism and feminism but between a male and a female mind if you know what i mean, like homogeneous wardrobe, the idea that clothing is just clothing. It doesnt matter who wears this, its a point of view, you know.its what you decide to pick up you know, i dont think necessarily clothing can be feminine or masculine, i think its just a character
La Femme et la jeune lle by Annette Messager, 1975
Annette Messager La Feme FemmeHomme, 1975
Jean Paul Gaultier “How can we say what is for a man or a woman?”
Claude Cahun (1894-1954) Self Portrait, C. 1927
Vivienne Westwood Spring/Summer 1990
Vivienne Westwood Fall/Winter 2006
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Rad Hourani My clothes and everything I do are not just about fashion or art, it’s about a global language in which I attract people I see myself in
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Photo by Angel Styling by My Nguyen Stylist’s Assistant by Giulia Bottoni Grooming by Shaun Casey Model Matthew at 2Morrow
Coat by Silent Damir Doma - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Coat by Silent Damir Doma
Jumpsuit by Acne - Top by Rochambeau - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Dress by Cos - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Jumpsuit by Acne - Top by Rochambeau - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Top by Cos
Top and Pants by Cos - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Top by Cos - Skirt by Back By Ann Sofie Back - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Jumpsuit by Acne - Top by Rochambeau - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Top and Pants by Cos - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Coat by Silent Damir Doma - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Shirt by Lucio Vanotti - Trousers by Acne - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store Top and Pants by Cos - Underwear by Sunspel - Socks by Falke - SHoes by B Store
Websites http://archives-dada.tumblr.com/ http://www.tumblr.com/ http://www.style.com/
bibliography
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/ http://nymag.com/thecut/ http://j-w-anderson.co.uk/ http://www.radhourani.com/ Book Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp by Pierre Cabanne