What Artists Wear

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Change your hairstyle. Choose a look that will make you stand out in a crowd. Consider these ideas for creating a wild look: He likewise decided to include Marina Abramović in the text and wrote in total 63 words about her and only one sentence about her and Ulay’s clothes “Note too the language of the garments: skirt for her, trousers for him.” That’s the last sentence made out of those total 63 words. Why did he need to include this and where is an an analysis in stating something obvious? I have no answer Brilliant and unexpected... What Artists Wear approaches fashion in a wholly different way Showstudio The book starts with Louise Bourgeois, goes on to Georgia O’Keeffe, Frieda Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Agnes Martin, and flutters through a panoply of artists up until today. Sometimes going deeper into the matter (as for Bourgeois or Basquiat) sometimes spending just one line on it. The book is eclectic, separated into categories (workwear, denim, paint on clothing, t-shirts, etc.) that are themselves interrupted by little segments on chosen artists.

It was all very organic, really,” he says. “Obviously, I knew at the start that there were some things I needed to cover off. But I wanted to give space to the artists whose work I really love today. So deciding who went in became something very natural.” Sarah Lucas Self-portrait with Fried Eggs, 1996, C-print. Photograph: Sarah Lucas/Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London Barbara Hepworth photographed in St Ives in 1957 Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images Reading it really does remind you of Ways of Seeing by John Berger, the feel of the book, the layout of text and image.According to Porter, the unspoken language of clothes – the intuitive, often mundane, everyday choices made by artists – can send messages that shine a spotlight on our cultural and social landscape. "For the last few decades, artists have been putting themselves at the centre of their work through video, photography and performance in a way that has never happened before," he says. "Therefore, the clothing they wear is right at the centre of the work too. They’re sending signals to the viewer." The tone of voice also has a real clarity to it, and the way the pictures are woven into the text make it very intuitive to read. Were you intentionally trying to make it accessible?

It made me think more clearly and more honestly about how I dress, and it made me think more clearly and honestly about the way we all dress. I think it’s something that I kind of hint at in the book, even if I don’t say it so explicitly, but ever since I finished the book, I believe more and more that we are all experts in the language of clothing. We all recognize that Macron, say, is adopting the language of governing power in his suit, or is attempting to reveal personality with his unbuttoned shirt and hairy chest. We all recognize the authority of uniforms, like in those really stark photos of the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, with the Russians all in suits, and the Ukrainians all in garments of stealth. Obviously it varies in different parts of the world and in different cultures, but it is also a universal thing that we all understand. It’s part of our social coding. And yet, I would say pretty much all of us deny this expertise. We’ll say, “Oh, this thing? I just put this on.” Or say, “I don’t know how to dress,” or “I’m not that interested in clothing.” Even people working in fashion want to make a point of the fact they didn’t take a lot of time putting their look together. Then some people outside of fashion have a kind of fear of fashion, of wearing the wrong thing, or feeling like they don’t know how to dress, which is all part of fashion making people become consumers and keep buying and keep buying. Delicious ... What Artists Wear can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of your art or fashion knowledge ... Porter shares each anecdote with the confidence and clarity of a story teller, weaving memories into the book * Glass * Brilliant and unexpected... What Artists Wear approaches fashion in a wholly different way * Showstudio * Most of us live our lives in our clothes without realizing their power. But in the hands of artists, garments reveal themselves. They are pure tools of expression, storytelling, resistance and creativity: canvases on which to show who we really are. Look at the fabric on his body: spotless. Now look at the curtains. Bacon used them to wipe his hands. Those hand marks go so high! What would the clothes he painted in have looked like? Why doesn’t he want us to see them?Unexpected, lushly illustrated ... As a connoisseur of the lived-in, Porter delights at Lee Krasner's paint-spattered slippers and the tactile richness of Alberto Giacometti's rumpled suit Hettie Judah, V&A Magazine Delicious ... What Artists Wear can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of your art or fashion knowledge ... Porter shares each anecdote with the confidence and clarity of a story teller, weaving memories into the book Glass Is the perfect book to sell in the Tate (*derogatory) and guardian readers (who feel neutral about the aids crisis)

An insightful account ... whether offering visual analysis or social observation, Porter writes with clarity and wit Frieze As he cycles through the lives of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah Lucas, Martine Syms, and Joseph Beuys, Porter's deep dive is a tender report on the legacies we leave behind and the clothes that accompany us along the way. Dazed Books of the Year

The question matters because, particularly in the past fifty years, the line between artwork and artist has evaporated. It is especially true for artists who wear clothing as part of performance, and for those who make clothing as part of their practice. This mode of working is incredibly new, in the context of the millennia of mark-making. Many artists turned to performance because they could find no place for themselves within art histories, galleries or critical discussion, often excluded because of gender and/or race. Through performance, they mapped their own territory, claiming a space within which to make very public, very personal, forms of art. A liberation and a joy, beautifully written and brilliantly thought. What Artists Wear is at once a revelatory account of how art is made and an electrifying investigation into the relationship between clothes and autonomy, freedom and power Olivia Laing

Takes ages to get to the point and is such a general overview - disappointingly un revolutionary (as seems to be the case with this kind of art book but what do you expect 🙄) makes me feel itchy and like I wanna shake the author upside down and scream at them You mentioned earlier being excited by those parallels across time and drawing links between artists from different generations. Did that factor into how you approached your research for the book? Timely ... intimate ... A leisurely, contemplative journey through the art world of the 20th Century, as shown through the medium of the artists' own clothes. * Hypebeast * Personal and brimming with anecdotes ...Porter explores the intrinsic connections between artists and their choice of clothing with agility, nuance and insatiable curiosity... His diverse curatorial eye holds both geographic and historical breadth Dan Thawley, A Magazine Curated By Charlie Porter: The trigger was a piece I wrote for the Financial Times in 2015 when the Agnes Martin show was on at Tate Modern. I was absolutely captivated by a photo of Martin in her studio in 1960. She was wearing this very rudimentary, functional, quilted clothing, off-white, with diamond quilting—a top and a bottom. It was the garments themselves that I found so compelling. They looked so extraordinarily contemporary.

Charlie Porter wrote it alone, although he is not an art critic, nor a historian, he is a fashion journalist and i think he took too ambitious of a goal very non offensive for your conservative grandma to read *coffee book table? Christmas gift? Is it trying to be “A-political”?? What Artists Wear takes steps to redefine the structures of how we think about artists, to de-deify them, to humanise them. In doing so, Porter successfully introduces clothes – a new, yet infinitely familiar element – to conversations about art. Charlie Porter's prose is patient and clean as a bone. His arena of inquiry is simple but endlessly fascinating. It reminds me in many ways of John Berger's Ways of Seeing: public-facing, image-rich, but still incisive. He draws the reader in with questions: "Can you see what's happening here?" "But look, what's there?" I love this kind of art criticism, one that speaks not 'at' an object, but 'to' it, 'with' it. One that circles around an object (in this case, a garment, not an artwork), unravelling its historical conditions, its aesthetic allure, its form, its function, its sacredness, its sentimentality, all in equal measure, as one would unwind ribbons from a maypole.