Art of the Mannequin- Cultural Merchandising

I recently went to see the Ralph Pucci show, “Art of the Mannequin” at the Museum of Art and Design. You may wonder why mannequins would be considered art at all. Further more, who in the word would be passionate about creating them? Ralph Pucci is his name; a lighting and furniture designer in New York City who has collaborated with interior designer Andree Putman, illustrator Ruben Toledo, and fashion designers Anna Sui and Diane Von Furstenberg. Clearly He’s not the only one interested in mannequin expression.

I had wanted to see the show since reading about it in the April  Interior Design Magazine’s ” Fashion Forward”  issue, which was all about visual merchandising, retail experience and the mannequin as art. The show opened in March, of course, it took me until the very last week to get to it.

The above photos feature the Interior Design article about Barney’s Dennis Freedman collaborating with Miuccia Prada on artistically crafted mannequins showing “…the texture of a face that has lived.” This display in Barney’s windows was meant to explore Miuchia’s notions of nonstandard beauty, longing and isolation. The use of mannequins as expression makes sense in visual merchandising. We can relate to a human likeness but the abstraction also allows us to distance ourselves from uncomfortable concepts or indulge in fantasy. Why wouldn’t artists choose the mannequin to confront certain paradigms of the human body and notions of beauty?

From a mannequin replicating the structure of Diane Von Furstenburg’s iconic features of the 70’s, to an athletic hand standing model popular in the 80’s era of aerobic fascination. A plump model for Isabel Toledo’s collection in the 90’s as well as the famous Dolly heads designed by Anna Sui, each of these styles reflect a sense of beauty and fantasy created for display and brand identity which defines our culture in time. As a designer myself, I remember the Anna Sui doll faces, I remember the first time I went to Barney’s and saw Isabel Toledo’s collection. I remember meeting Diane Von Furstenburg and being completely enamored with her cheek bones. I remember Jazzercise in the 80’s when I was dreaming about “Get in Shape Girl” under the Christmas tree and I remember Jane Fonda coming to SCAD to accept the Lifetime Achievement award. If mannequins are simply props for merchandise, why then, do I recognize these symbols in history?

…Or maybe I have a disposition for it. As a trend analyst, I spend a lot of time exploring retail space, observing the emotional experience of visual merchandising and photographing clothing on mannequins. I started shooting artistic angles of Mannequins that kind of creeped me out with a sort of Rene Magritte surrealism. I’m absolutely fascinated when the ordinary falls out of context and becomes confounding. Is that surrealism? Whatever it is, it tickles the brain.

 In the several years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve begun to empathize with mannequins. So much so, that I paint their portraits. The series has developed into a commentary on personal identity and branding I’ve called “Manniq(in) Depression”.

The slight expressions and abstracted planes of the face, allow me to play with color and shadow in a way people portraiture complicate. The lack of identity allows me to comment on the idea of identity it’s self without getting personal.

I just might be as obsessed with mannequins as Ralph Pucci . They are an art form as much as they can inform art. I thought I walked alone in retail, observing displays and contemplating significance in our culture. They are representations of what’s going on, they teach us about ourselves and our aspirations. They are a mirror into our world, our culture. Praise be the man who took them out of ordinary context and tickled our brains.