Exhibition
Judith Clark and Adam Phillips: The Concise Dictionary of Dress - Blythe House
Located within the working store for the V&A’s vast reserve collections of furniture, ceramics, glass, jewellery, textiles, fashion and fine arts, The Concise Dictionary of Dress begins with a journey through a turnstile, into an industrial goods lift and up to the first in a sequence of intriguing definitions in a walk-through dictionary of dress…
Cast objects and photographs, tableaux of clothing and accessories are arranged amongst the rolling racks and wrapped objects stored at Blythe House, the former headquarters of the Post Office Savings Bank in Olympia, west London. The anatomy of the building reveals surreal and evocative interventions in unexpected places; metaphors of repression and ceremony; fragments of the clothed body briefly glimpsed.
Commissioned by Artangel, The Concise Dictionary of Dress re-describes clothing in terms of anxiety, wish and desire, as a series of definitions created by psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and accompanying installations designed and assembled by fashion curator Judith Clark.
The Concise Dictionary of Dress is also a 128-page hardback book. Illustrated in colour and with written contributions from Adam Phillips and Judith Clark and specially commissioned photography by Norbert Schoerner, it is published in April 2010 by Violette Editions in association with Artangel priced £25.00, special exhibition price £15.00 (NB cover price differs slightly from that previously listed).
A map is available here and access information can be found here.
The Concise Dictionary of Dress is produced by Artangel in collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum. It is supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels. Artangel is also grateful to the London College of Fashion for their support of this project.
