Ready to Sparkle Fashions
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi ; Richard Davis; Editions Alecto
Description
Subject Matter:
Like many of his contemporaries, Paolozzi used new printing techniques as a way to engage with modern mass media's new visual culture. At the same time, the photomechanical process made the work look mechanically manufactured rather than hand made, in the traditional artistic sense. Therefore when he modified, transformed, and assembled the source image(s), the medium would allow for a more uniform final image.
This print is one of a large series of 50 prints included in the 1970 portfolio, which was a second edition of the an earlier group of slightly larger prints titled "Moonstrips Empire News." While the first series was stricktly produced as screenprints, this second series "General Dynamic F.U.N." includes works of photolithography, like this print. The themes seen in this portfolio are different in style and subject matter from other Pop works of the period, but engage with the images of a modern mass media, looking beyond just advertising and publicity images. Likewise, the title of the portfolio alludes to the General Dynamics Corporation, who was the manufacturer of the F-111 fighter used during the Vietnam War—the same one referenced in James Rosenquist monumental painting "F-111."
Here Paolozzi has used a fashion portrait of a nude woman and transformed it into a satirical questioning of the seemingly straightforward representation. By creating a kind of mute mask with the yellow covering, he makes the subject unable to speak—she is now a mere object. Her body, covered in this patterning looses its dimension, its curves, its individuality and becomes a kind of mesmerizing wave. Seduction is not completely lost but it shifts from the model's body to the covering pattern. At the same time, the patterning also functions like a kind of straight-jacket. Like the yellow mask-like covering above, his covering of the body does not point to modesty but, as the title alludes, to the function of fashion as an allurement that makes the model into a mere hanger.
Physical Description:
This photolithographic print in shades of brown and orange features one central image of a woman. Her hair is in a curly up-do and her arms are crossed over her chest. Her body is overprinted in two sections: from forehead to just below her nose is a mask-like yellow and her body from her mouth to her stomach is covered in a herringbone pattern.
Usage Rights:
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