Prêt-à-porter, 2013
Prêt-à-porter consists of a set of empty cases and showcases of different shapes, dimensions and origins – French, English, American, Japanese, Chinese, Brazilian –, from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, screwed together in a line close to the other of its openings, forming a 90° angle. The half-open cases thus structure a modular “body” 8.80 m long, placed on a neutral base with a length similar to theirs, and 0.90 m wide. The height studied for the arrangement of the half-open cases on the base considered a correlation with the approximate height of the sex. The ideas of exhibition and display that have recurred in my production, since at least Exposição (2007), reappear in Prêt-à-porter. A meeting of distinct temporalities is problematized by the work, in addition to the procedures of appropriation, assembly, serialization and editing. Prêt-à-porter also emphasizes a transition between inside and outside, between what is kept or lost forever.
The arrangement can also be understood as a “painting” revealed by the variety of colors and surfaces that cover the interior and exterior of these cases and displays. There are different surfaces, paper, wood, metal, suede, leather, satin, velvet, silk, linen, in different colors, blue, violet, purple, orange, green, among others. Prêt-à-porter then presents a kind of game of alternations and successive contrasts between worn and new surfaces, which also reveal, through their cavities, bas-reliefs and recesses, a void: the absence of the object.
Thiago Honório, February 2013.
Work Details
Prêt-à-porter, 2013
Ensamble of cases and showcases of different shapes, dimensions and origins – French, English, Italian, American, Japenese, Chinese, Portuguese, Argentine, Brazilian –, from 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, unfolded and screwed to one another close to their opening lines
8,80 x 0,90 m
28,8 x 2,9 ft
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo Collection
photo: Edouard Fraipont
Exhibitions
O Colecionador: arte contemporânea e colecionismo no acervo da Pinacoteca,
Estação Pinacoteca, SP, 2022
Estranhamente Familiar, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, SP, 2013