BLESS | Fashion Work, Fashion Workers
Department
Challenging JewelleryDirectors documentation
BLESS: (Desiree Heiss, Ines Kaag), Directors of new Temporary Programme Challenging Jewellery (2018-2020), participated in the Fashion Work, Fashion Workers, at CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, in Upstate New York from 8 April - 27 May 2018. The exhibition, curated by Jeppe Ugelvig, that focused on the often overlooked efforts of artists and designers to truly examine, subvert, and disrupt the fashion industry’s politics of labour and production, spotlighted ingenious projects by DIS, BLESS, Susan Cianciolo, and Bernadette Corporation.
On the other side of the pond, the Paris and Berlin-based duo BLESS has spent the past two decades rethinking conventions of fashion production and presentation. Transcending the traditional categorisation of art, design, and ready-to-wear, the studio (formed by Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag) has defined an idealist approach which, in their own words, functions as “a visionary substitute to make the near future worth living for.” They present their interdisciplinary work exclusively through “services,” which they display concurrently in museums, art biennials, and fashion stores around the world. “They’re an interesting model,” argues Ugelvig of the pair, who were discovered by Margiela circa 1996 after taking out an advert in i-D to promote their fur wigs, with money borrowed from their parents. “It’s like an open-ended process.”
