OUGD601 - Context of Practice 3: Research (4) Influential artists

 Vivienne Westwood and her boyfriend McLaren were renown for their distorted customisations such as rips, zips, studs, badges and armbands were now being used as a political statement on the street. These clothes had something to say – they carried slogans, not logos.

Punk fashion became even more politicised and ‘street punk’ creating the image of punk we now all remember: mohawks, studded chokers, tattooes, Dr. Martens boots and tartan. 

This is a pair of gay cowboys designed by  Vivienne Westwood in the mid-1970s. This t-shirt created a massive fuss in the 1970’s.

Two cowboys, naked from the waist down, with their genitalia out. 

The idea was to make clothes look wrong. The shock tactics of using images of inverted crucifixes, swastikas, porn and naked cowboys caused an outrage at the time.

It is important to notice that it was the quality of the image, but rather, the image’s message/meaning. At a time where no one came out as gay this was this was a way of trying to blurr the boundaries that punk did so well in. 

Another design  by Vivienne Westwood, comes more recently where Terry Jones is seen wearing a Save the Arctic T-shirt. 

Westwood said that communicating the threat of climate change had become her priority and so she is keen to promote Greenpeace’s work to protect the Arctic.

The tools and processes artists and designers use for producing artwork have become just as important, if not, key, to articulating meaning. Artists and designers are now interested in the mechanics of how art is composed and becomes significant as “art”.

It is also important to highlight Barbara Kruger, who uses words and images to express her opinion. 

Kruger’s work has become more relevant when the rise of online shopping and advertising has left consumers inundated by words that become meaningless in their ubiquity. 

What Kruger says is that she only uses words and images to express herself because she thinks that words and images have lost meaning because of how much they are seen everyday. By using slogans and images she is bringing back the meaning behind these words. 

The words ‘I shop therefore I am’ now have a meaning which Selfridges used to  comments on our ‘conspicuous consumption’ showing the consumer that they are aware that we over-consume and that our behaviour changes.