Transformations: Creating Character in Contemporary Photography

Abstract

TransformationsCreating Character in Contemporary Photography Kristine Somerville Click for larger view View full resolution Yinka Shonibare, Medusa West, 2015, digital chromogenic print and bespoke wooden frame, © Yinka Shonibare CBE. All rights reserved, DACS/ARS, NY, 2021. Image courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York and Shanghai, photo: Adam Reich. [End Page 153] Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us. … There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. —Virginia Woolf, Orlando As a child during the '60s, I fell in love with the adventurous styles of the era, with their bright colors and patterns, variety of materials and textures, and extreme shapes, from form-fitting to free-flowing and voluminous. I had several pieces of clothing that I adored: a silk shirt patterned with wide-eyed, lush-whiskered cats, light blue patent leather saddle shoes, and a richly embroidered peasant top. I was an awkward, shy child who hid behind her mother when strangers spoke to her, but I was extroverted in my sense of style. The flashier the clothes, the better I liked them and the braver I felt when venturing out into the world. Playing dress-up was a favorite pastime. One of the advantages of being a child of divorce was that once my parents remarried, I had four closets to raid rather than two. In my father's, there were pieces from different phases of his life. From his college years, he kept his letterman sweater and fraternity sweatshirts, and from his mandatory military service in the army in Frankfurt, Germany, he still had his green fatigues, flight jacket, and combat helmet. In his early thirties, he was too old for the swinging '60s, but he had the outfits, a beloved Sonny Bono–inspired suede vest lined with llama fur and wide-checked bell-bottom pants. But his uniform of real life—dress shirts and sharply tailored three-piece business suits, the occasional cashmere sweater—crowded out the flashy phases of youth. Hidden in the recesses of my stepmother's closet was a cornucopia of psychedelic silk minidresses, cotton granny dresses, platform shoes, and floppy hats, but I loved even more the slinky evening gowns that she wore when they went out for a night on the town in Chicago. Her closet resembled a small boutique, with a three-way mirror; sequined handbags and strappy heels lined the top shelves, stored in their original boxes. [End Page 154] Click for larger view View full resolution Silin Liu, Frida Kahlo & Céline Liu, 2017, color photograph, courtesy of the artist My mother and stepfather were more practical and less sentimental about clothes. While they didn't keep much from the past, in my stepfather's closet, among his sensible leisure suits, were a few surprises: a paisley smoking jacket with a tasseled belt and a couple of Western shirts with pearl snap buttons. My mother didn't particularly like clothes and tended toward comfortable permanent-press trousers and matching turtlenecks. But she did have a fondness for wigs. A row of felt-covered Styrofoam heads sat atop her dresser, displaying a frosted shag, a blond pageboy, and a mess of brown, tousled curls. The trials of work and the tribulations of a blended family kept my mother and stepfather exhausted. Their dressier clothes languished in dry cleaners' plastic, and the wigs gathered dust, except when I shook one off, popped [End Page 155] Click for larger view View full resolution Silin Liu, Andy Warhol & Céline Liu, 2015, color photograph, courtesy of the artist it on my head, and paraded around the house while draped in strings of fake pearls that I had pillaged from her jewelry box. Child psychologists often encourage the play of dressing up because it allows children to explore the adult world. This was true for me. I didn't yet have a sense of my...