We live in a modern world where everything is changing every mome. Every concept and eve can evoke another eve. Discovering these associations sometimes helps us better connect with the busy world around us. In this article, we will look at the relationship between two forms of today's performances: catwalk and performance art. We wa to answer the question, is the catwalk an artistic performance?
What is performance art?
“Performance art”, which often uses the term “performance art” as its Persian equivale, is a branch of modern conceptual art. This type of art is rooted in visual arts. However, elemes of theater art, music and dance are also used in it. Today, technological facilities play an importa role in performance art. The dimensions of this branch of modern art are so wide that some believe that it cannot be comprehensively defined. However, we can talk about its main compones.
The basic condition for the formation of an artistic performance is the presence of the audience and communicating with them. Even the smallest impact on the audience can include this connection. For example, the audience can be put in a situation to find a new experience of seeing the creation of a paiing while listening to a piece of music. Lighting and space design also play an importa role in the formation of an artistic performance. Also, in many works of performance art, the performer's body plays an esseial role. Differe concepts are represeed through the body.
What is a catwalk??
Catwalk, which is translated as “walking like a cat” in Farsi, is an iegral part of today's fashion shows. One of the importa eves that happens in the modern world and is attended by both ordinary people and artists is a fashion show. In these fashion shows, a fashion designer displays his works. He brings the clothes he designed around a special concept to life on mannequins and displays them with a special theme and atmosphere. Each mannequin walks the catwalk on a T-shaped stage.
What is importa in the catwalk is the display of moving bodies wearing special clothes. In fact, the mannequins should walk with such arrogance and pride that the audience thinks that if they wear those clothes, they can be just as proud of themselves. Nowadays, designers use various art facilities, including theater and music, in their catwalks to prese their works as attractively as possible.
What is the similarity between catwalk and performance art??
There is no doubt that the catwalk is a kind of performance as an eve held for a specific audience. But can it be considered a work similar to a performance art? What common elemes are there between these two forms of performance?
Run around a concept!
One of the meeting pois of a catwalk and a performance is the concept of both of them. In a performance art work, the artist tries to shape his performance ideas around a specific concept. A concept that can be taken from the whole work. In a fashion show, the designer tries to design his catwalk based on a specific concept and theme. In fact, both the performance designer and the catwalk designer are concerned with conveying the concept to their audience.
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The presence of bodies
We already said that in many works of performance art, the performer's body is the ceral poi of the performance. It goes without saying that in a catwalk, it is the bodies of the mannequins that play the main role; But when the body is at the ceer of a performance, it can no longer be a normal body. In an artistic performance, the performer's body has a special presence. A presence differe from the normal presence of a body in space. In a catwalk, the mannequin's body is no longer a normal body. This body has been trained for this type of performance and has learned to display its body in a way that excites the audience. The body plays a key role in both of these performances.
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Everything happens in a mome!
One of the main similarities between performance art and the catwalk is that both of them take place in the prese mome. To simplify this issue, we can meion their difference from theater. Although the theater is also performed in the prese time, but in a theater performance, the actors prese a story for represeation. While in a performance or catwalk, the artist and performer does not represe anything. Everything is formed only to be exposed to the viewer. Space and atmosphere are created and experienced in the mome. Just like tasting a food for the first time!
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Use of light, sound and image
Both in the catwalk and in an artistic performance, various light, sound and image facilities are used. Technology is advancing every day and these various facilities help artists to create more attractive performances in fro of their audience. Audio and visual facilities are also a powerful tool in the hands of designers and artists to create their desired atmosphere and influence the audience as much as possible.
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Finding similarities by iroducing several examples
One of the designers who uses ideas similar to artistic performances in his fashion shows is John Galliano. In the fashion show that he designed for Margiela's 2024 collection in Paris, he used elemes such as live music with atmosphere and staging that evoked the theme and mood of the 90s to captivate his audience even more. In this fashion show, the models walked the catwalk with cinematic theatrical figures in a scene like a street cafe and gave special poses and movemes to their bodies, each of which inspired an emotion to the audience.
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Another very ieresting example of a fashion show using elemes of performance art is the spring fashion show of the AVAVAV brand at Milan Fashion Week 2024. In this runway, which was directed by Beate Karlsson with the concept of No Time to Design, No Time to Explain, the models were rushed or pushed oo the stage in half-length dresses; Some of them even put on their clothes on stage and left the stage in a hurry.
Also, in another runway of the same brand and again directed by Beate Karlsson at Milan Fashion Week 2024, the audience was given garbage to throw at the models. An idea that turned this runway io one of the most coroversial fashion shows of the year. It should be noted that the participation of the audience in the performance is one of the modern elemes of artistic performances.
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Another designer who uses performance art elemes in his fashion shows is Henrik Vibskov. For example, in his Fall/Wier 2024 collection at Copenhagen Fashion Week, which was called The Daily Chewing Gum Therapy Session, he designed the runway to look like a doll's house, with closets that resembled large volumes. It had come out to the gum. The models walked the catwalk in this faasy scene and the performers wore clothes that puffed up like chewing gum; At certain momes, they appeared behind the closets. Conceptual and faasy staging is one of the other characteristics of performance art.
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Conclusion: The catwalk dressed as an artistic performance!
In the modern world in which we live, the border between everything has disappeared; Differe arts have merged and it is difficult to separate them. An eve like a catwalk is so similar to an art like performance art that they cannot be separated easily. At least the images we see on the catwalks are so similar to art performances that it makes it difficult for us. But despite all these similarities, there is still a difference and that is the purpose of their formation. A performance is formed with the purpose of creating art, and a catwalk is formed with the purpose of iroducing and preseing the works of a fashion designer or a specific brand. So, it may be concluded that the catwalk is a modern eve dressed as an artistic performance.
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