vienna

“The more it should be common sense to an enlightened art
scene that the categories “beautiful” and “ugly” have become
irrelevant for the attempts at raising aesthetic questions and
finding solutions to them, the more they keep sneaking into
the discourse through the back door of the commonplace, of
fashion, advertising and the ideologies of design – like spectres
of themselves.” 21
The philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann proposes that the
category of the ugly has undergone considerable change, shifting
from the arts into design, and so into our everyday life. If we
follow this proposition, we could assume that the ugly has found
its final abode in our seasonal sale window. It will, however,
be worthwhile to look back at the arts and see what initial
function the ugly had had. In Umberto Eco’s historical analysis
of beauty, we find that the aesthetic categories represented by
the ancient Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus coexist side by side,
although the incursion of chaos disrupts the permanent state
of beauty and harmony from time to time. 22 In ancient Greek
aesthetic economy, the cyclical appearance of the ugly was a
stabilising factor. Will this be true of contemporary aesthetic
economy of the high street as well?
The Dionysian rite is closely bound to myth; it is the myth
of the dying god. James George Frazer draws a comparison
between myth and rite in order to prove that ritual practice was
the starting point for mythology. 23 The death of the god was, in
a magical way, brought into relation to the awakening of flora.
Here we find our way back to Barthes’ argument in which he
relates the advent of the new spring collection to the awakening
of nature. The corn god is sacrificed and, with his resurrection,
nature is reborn in spring. 24 Since Nietzsche, an archaic sacrifice
is seen as the origins of the performing arts. 25 The orgiastic cult
becomes the aesthetic opponent of beauty.
Today, the new collection is presented on the catwalk. The
runway presentation is, in its aesthetic representation, more
related to the beautiful world of Apollo. Nietzsche spoke about
21 Liessmann (2000:159)*.
22 Eco (2005:55).
23 Graf (1993:40). Today there are two hypotheses about the origin of tragedy. While the one uses a ritualistic approach, the
other is founded on a literature-based approach. See Graf (1993:144-45).
24 René Girard dedicated one chapter in his book on the violent nature of sacrifice to the rite of Dionysus (1988:119-XX).
25 Brandstetter (2001:135)
The Fashion System
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