Bettina Allamoda: ready to wear colonial

Bettina Allamoda uses a variety of media like video, sculpture, installation, and performance. She researches into how art can shape our environment. This investigation is closely linked to an analysis of the social attitudes and cultural-political implications within art. Allamoda´s work which she refers to herself as "Archeology of the present" combines found objects and images and re-interpretes them by breaking the boundaries between art and object, between art and commodity.

"Dressed-up spaces, or, what should I wear today?"

The ambiance of the "white cube" has been expanded from its original context within the museum to a general architectural situation within public space. While at the end of the 20th century the museum itself has been turned into a work of art (eg the museums conceived by Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind), a building's interior can also be easily transformed into a white cube by temporarily changing its design - whereas the white cube, in return, can also be "dressed-up".

Thus a number of museum spaces or representational buildings serve the Paris fashion shows as mere backdrops or provide an environment for the event.

"Ready to wear colonial" is the first part of an extensive body of work which Allamoda took up this year during a stipend in Paris. The exhibition consists of an installation combining videostills, texts and videos which are projected onto a large-scale sculpture based on the ground plan of the UNESCO building in Paris. Allamoda collages images of this famous building with shots from fashion shows that were staged in its interior and in other buildings in Paris, the architecture and design of which reflect a European post-colonial attitude. Her major interest lies in the decoration and presentation of the spaces that express a contemporary appropration or interpretation of the "exotic" against the background of an increasing globalization.

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Bettina Allamoda: ready to wear colonial