2009 AAANZ Conference Abstracts - The Art Association of Australia ...

its distinctive cultural reference. Secondly, it provides food
for thought on how localized art and culture, such as Maori,
contributes significantly to global dress-based discourses within
Art History and other Disciplines.
Jo Diamond is of Ngapuhi Māori descent and is currently
a Senior Lecturer in Māori Art History at the University of
Canterbury, Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her
postgraduate study was undertaken at The Australian National
University Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in Canberra. She
has a research background in Māori, Pacific and Indigenous
Australian Studies, Gender Relations, Art History and
Anthropology.
5. Light: the Development of Mariko Mori’s Ethereal
Persona
Dr Allison Holland
This paper considers the photographs, installations and
performances of Mariko Mori. Born in Japan, educated in Japan,
England and the USA, Mori is like many contemporary artists
who live in, and respond to, a globalised world. The construction
of identity is integral to her early photographic works where
costume and mise en scène dominate. Drawing from her
experience as a model and studies in fashion design Mori has
cultivated an artistic persona. Dressed in her signature white,
Mori has periodically performed within the cultural space of the
gallery introducing a temporal element to her installations. Over
the course of her career a significant shift has occurred from the
centrality of the performative body to an absented body; from
constructed images of pop idols and deities to installations that
refer to the extraterrestrial and universal space. A minimalist, the
artist has consistently used light and white to maintain a cool
aesthetic.
Allison Holland completed her doctorate in Art History at the
University of Melbourne making a comprehensive analysis
of the oeuvre of contemporary artist Mariko Mori. Allison has
also lectured in the School of Art History at the University of
Melbourne, curated exhibitions at the State Library of Victoria
and was employed as a Paper Conservator at the National
Gallery of Australia. Currently, Allison is Curator, Prints and
Drawings at the National Gallery of Victoria.
6. Cool Hunting and the Fetish Object: Performance and
Untranscended Materiality
Jay Kochel
From Sartor Resartus to The Sartorialist, there is a search for
the understanding of what constitutes cool and its connections
to the materiality of fashion. This might simply be referred to
as style, a refinement of taste, as Bourdieu might define it. The
reality of cool however is closer to what Bourdieu might frame
within a more exceptional exercise of practice, an embodied
suave performance of the everyday. The idea of cool, something
that is the superlative of the everyday, the banal enabled
beyond expectation. Cool becomes something recognised by
others, although located within the self, to say that one is ‘cool’
is uncool. Its placement is in the process of ‘cool hunting’,
the predatory nature of pattern recognition, something that
belies our sense of anticipation. The location of the body in the
performative arena of the material world situates the self first
and foremost as an embodied encounter. Cool then situates
itself in our bodies and as an extension of our bodies. Just as
shame is to guilt, so cool might be to aplomb. Through the
material locations of the body and performance, the fetish
operates as a means of framing the power of material agency as
an extension of self and an enabler of the performance of cool.
The fetish coalesces otherwise heterogeneous elements into a
unique untranscended materiality, a materiality that acts as both
an inscriptive surface for the projection of value and acts as a
controlling organ of the material self.
Jay Kochel is a current PhD Candidate in Visual Arts, School
of Art, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences and a recipient
of ANU CASS PhD Scholarship. Jay completed a Bachelor of
Visual Arts (Sculpture) Hons 1st Class in 2002 at NITA, Canberra
School of Art, Australian National University and prior to that a
Bachelor of Law/Arts T(Anthropology) 1996 from The Australian
National University.
7. Nostalgia: A Sartorial Stance
Rebecca Gully
This paper explores coolness through the wearing of vintage
clothing by men in the rockabilly scene. It considers the nexus
of dress, the body and location across time and the relationship
to nostalgia, a sense of self, place and identity.
The male rockabilly wears reconstructions of iconic American
masculinity that taps into looks of returned WWII servicemen,
rock’n’roll, rhythm and blues, doowop and hillbilly singers
and musicians, and Mexican-American Pachuco culture, as
well as nostalgic fantasies that revolve around vacations in
Hawaii. Wearing pomaded hair, pink slacks and Hawaiian shirts
challenges ideals laid down by the self appointed arbiters of
taste, and what Bourdieu refers to as “aesthetic racism”.
In a world of mass culture and disposable fashion what does it
mean to embrace iconic American looks of flamboyance and excess
from the post war era The wearing of original mid 20th century
clothing means strong and emotional connections are made,
resulting in an active engagement with the past through wearing.
New narratives are created around the garment as artefact.
23