Jcs 3 (1) pp. 117–150 Intellect Limited 2014 Journal of curatorial studies Volume 3 Number 1 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Exhibition Reviews. English language. doi: 10.1386/jcs.3.1.117_7 Exhibition REviEws GLAM! THE PERFORMANCE OF STYLE Curated by Darren Pih, exhibited at Tate Liverpool, 8 February–12 May 2013, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 14 June–22 September 2013, and Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, 19 October 2013–2 February 2014. Reviewed by Kathryn Franklin, York University Two exhibitions have opened in 2013 that centre on a specific artistic style of the early 1970s known as glam. Glam! The Performance of Style calls itself the first exhibition to explore glam style and sensibility in depth. The exhibit deals primarily with musicians such as David Bowie, Marc Bolan of T-Rex, and Roxy Music, and artists such as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and David Hockney, along with their roles in shaping and developing the glam aesthetic. Meanwhile, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has been granted access to David Bowie’s archive to curate what is argu- ably the most widely discussed exhibit of the year. David Bowie Is focuses on the recording artist’s long and influential career – Bowie himself having just released his twenty-fourth studio album, The Next Day, earlier in the year. Glam rock, however, has never historically counted as a significant phenomenon in discourses on rock music culture. Philip Auslander (2006) suggests that this historical neglect of glam rock is symptomatic of the failure of most major British glam artists to penetrate the American market – with the exception of the ubiquitous David Bowie. Nevertheless with the fanfare surrounding Bowie’s most recent album and David Bowie Is, glam is more pervasive than ever with newspapers and maga- zine covers waxing nostalgic for this period of the 1970s while fashion runways reinforce the glam renaissance (see Diane von Furstenberg’s Fall 2013 ‘GLAM ROCK’ collection). Where once glam style was on 117 JCS_3.1_Exhibition Reviews_117-150.indd 117 4/9/14 9:06:55 PM Exhibition Reviews Glam! The Performance of Style (2013), installation views at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: left to right, Karl Stoecker, Brian Eno Wearing Stage Costume Designed by Carol McNicoll (1973), Stoecker, Bryan Ferry Wearing Stage Costume Designed by Antony Price (1973), and Masayoshi Sukita, David Bowie (1973) (above); Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Celebration? Realife (1972–2000), mixed media (below). Photos: Norbert Miguletz, courtesy of Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. 118 JCS_3.1_Exhibition Reviews_117-150.indd 118 4/1/14 1:38:52 PM Exhibition Reviews the fringes of the mainstream or what Dick Hebdige referred to as ‘a self-consciously profane and terminal aesthetic’ (1979: 27), in its current iteration glam has been repackaged for a more media-savvy audience. The most obvious example of course is the popularity of Lady Gaga who incorporates both high and low culture into her glam aesthetic. While her songs are filled with mundane lyrics about failed romances, dance parties and self-acceptance, references in her music videos range from German expressionism to cabaret to Kubrick – familiar themes within the glam canon. In this regard, curator Darren Pih’s exhibit attempts to provide some context for the current glamscape especially in the wake of Bowie mania. The poster that cloaks the entrance to the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt features Brian Eno in a guitar-god pose adorned in one of Carol McNicoll’s extraordinarily ornate costumes from 1972. Eno, one of the founding members of the seminal glam band Roxy Music, is a natural choice to represent the face of 1970s glam given his overly feminized presence and avant-garde demeanour. Eno’s image, however, also resonates precisely because he is not Bowie. Arguably the most recognizable face of glam rock is Bowie in either one of his alter egos, the otherworldly Ziggy Stardust or the pale lightning-streaked face of Alladin Sane (the face of the V&A exhibit). Glam! The Performance of Style, however, chooses to open its exhibit with two giant photographs of Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry by Karl Stoecker (1973) presented alongside a glass case containing McNicoll’s outlandish costumes for the two leading men of Roxy Music. Across from them is a photograph of Bowie dressed in one of Kansai Yamamoto’s geometric designs for the Alladin Sane tour. These three performers stand in the room as the holy trinity of glam inviting visitors to discover the greatest story rarely told. Pih curates an exhibit that explores the politics and social environment of 1970s Britain where glam had its beginnings. The thesis that Glam! The Performance of Style presents is that the glam aesthetic was more than a visual style; it represented a sensibility born from a specific social context. Glam emerged out of the counter-culture of the late 1960s and the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain in 1967. Rock historian Barney Hoskyns observes that ‘glamour was the antithesis of hippiedom: for long hair puritans, glamour symbolized affluence, capitalism, show business’ (1998: 23). In defiance of the audience with which they had previously aligned themselves, artists like Bowie and Marc Bolan of T-Rex embraced a subversive sense of glamour. While an exact definition of ‘glam’ is difficult to pin down – much like the word ‘glamour’ itself, glam being a more dishevelled descendent – its expression remains instantly recognizable. Glam rock was arguably a predominantly male phenom- enon and the exhibit primarily focuses on the male artists who blurred traditional gender lines by adopting Hollywood female glamour tropes such as thick make-up, elaborate hairstyles, platform shoes and glittering costumes. While some glam rockers, notably Bolan, Bowie and Lou Reed, professed homosexuality or bisexuality, most simply adopted glam as a provocative performance style. Glam! The Performance of Style, however, does make a conscious effort to explore female contributions to this scene. For an aesthetic that relies 119 JCS_3.1_Exhibition Reviews_117-150.indd 119 4/1/14 1:38:52 PM Exhibition Reviews heavily on female gender constructions it would seem odd to not have any mention of female production. Auslander notes that the feminized image affected by glam men was, at least to some extent, constructed by women. Glam appealed to female fans both as a style they could adapt for themselves and as a desirable male image. Nancy Hellebrand’s Delia (Marc Bolan Fan in Her Bedroom) (1973) shows a young woman with a Ziggy Stardust haircut seated comfortably among her Marc Bolan posters while Nan Goldin’s photographs of cross-dressing Bostonians also gives a glimpse into glam areas outside of the United Kingdom. Katharina Sieverding’s video projection Transformer (1973–74) merges her face with her fellow artist and partner Klaus Metting, blurring the boundaries between identity and gender. Their faces are heavily made-up, evoking images of glamour while simultaneously questioning ideas about glam and aesthetics. While the exhibit primarily examines glam in the context of London and Andy Warhol’s New York City, one room is devoted to other glam spaces ranging from photographs taken in the streets of cities in Brazil in the 1970s to the student protests at Kent State University in Ohio to the work of Toronto’s General Idea. A display case features a costume the trio created for the performance Miss General Idea Pageant (1971), a mock-beauty pageant exploring the dialectical relationship between art and the media, as well as the issue of File Megazine (1975) that delivered their treatise on the definition of glamour in the modern city. It has been 40 years since David Bowie retired his famed alter ego Ziggy Stardust at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, yet the spectre of his image continues to endure. Pih provides not only a retrospective of this period in the 1970s, but also a platform for acknowledging the profound influ- ence this aesthetic continues to have on popular culture in the present – as the glam timeline plastered along the sidelines of the gallery helpfully explains. In the centre of the exhibit is Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s mixed media Celebration? Realife (1972–2000), a room filled with strewn glitter and disco balls as Bowie’s Changes plays in the background. Chaimowicz’s simulacrum of the best party you have never been to feels almost synec- dochal of glam itself. Indeed, it is time to face the strange. References Auslander, Philip (2006), Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hebdige, Dick (1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London and New York: Routledge. Hoskyns, Barney (1998), Glam! Bowie, Bolan and the Glitter Rock Revolution, New York: Pocket Books. E-mail: [email protected] Kathryn Franklin has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format it was submitted to Intellect Ltd. 120 JCS_3.1_Exhibition Reviews_117-150.indd 120 4/1/14 1:38:52 PM Exhibition Reviews DAVID TOMAS, CONSIGNED FOR AUCTION Artexte, Montreal, 7 September–26 October 2013; 31 October 2013–11 January 2014 Reviewed by Marc James Léger, Independent Scholar In his 2012 artist’s book Escape Velocity, David Tomas proposes that the university is the new context for art’s production and the medium for the formation of the artist since at least the 1960s and 1970s. The produc- tion of knowledge, he argues, pivots around the library as the archive for books – the university’s main medium for storage and communication as well as a context for the transformation of ideas. Consigned for Auction transfers this interest in the relation between knowledge and cultural production to the exhibition and research spaces of the artists’ documen- tation centre Artexte.