Look at the unusual embellishments on this handbag.
Pinned to the bag itself are several brooches. Two are made to resemble the heads of dogs. I find them both slightly unnerving, in exactly the same way that I used to be slightly afraid of the horse brasses that my granny once had decorating her gas fire (note to self: think more about why they are scary - maybe it's because the dogs look sad, angry and deceased). Then there are five more brooches depicting people - romantic cameo profiles of women with flowing hair, a portrait of a courting couple gazing sweetly at each other. The multitude of them reduces their individual dignity & emotional appeal, if there were any.
The combined effect of these sentimental-yet-grotesque objects is disturbing enough, then we get to the key rings attached to the handle of the bag. It's always struck me as an unusual habit, attaching 'charms' to one's handbag or phone case, but here we are. This bag has been beautified with a a football, some big plastic letters, a section of the London tube map and a small yellow guitar, amongst other things. What else can you spot?
Photo: is a close-up, a detail of a work by artist Mark Clarke, I saw it in Bath, UK. This extraordinary bag is part of an assemblage, here meaning a bunch of objects gathered together and arranged inside wooden and glass cases. The series of cases with their odd interiors is called "Clarke's Cabinets of Idol Worship". It is offered to the viewer as a form of folk art, which explores early 21st century celebrity and fame. A time in which we wanted the handbags of celebrities and attached charms to them, as though to become closer to our idols.
Having recently visited the #Cute exhibition at Somerset House, Dr Nick Coates, it strikes me now, as then, that there's a point where things which are cute, sentimental and twee lurch over some invisible line and become horror. I feel like the ostentatiously cute things at Somerset House and the not-very-cute plastic football and disembodied dogs' heads are both approaching the same truth but from different directions.
#semiotics #marketing #art #markclarke #bath #cute #fashion #culture #celebrity #fame
Organic Social Media Manager Freelancer🚀| Founder of Not The Pig🧡
3moLoved this, far too many of the looks we saw this year reminded me of the hunger games🫠 *brownie salute and whistle*🫡