Carol Christian Poell

[AKA*NYC]

really good stuff christian! if nothing else i think we all can agree that the greatness of carol is that his work necessitates and rewards this sort of careful thought and interpretation.

p.s. the damned

[kunk75]

i could lift my arms and write a nasty response were i not wearing a ccp shirt. you also have a double negative in there homeboy :p

[deleuze]

Interesting discussion the last few pages. Recently I was browsing through some Stephen Schneider collections and Poell's imagery started creeping into my mind. Schneider's work has always disturbed me to an incredible degree. The delicate attentiveness and precise tailoring evocative of an aristocratic sensibility interplayed with the modern ease and wimsy of a post-war cosmopolitanism results in an awkward coherency suggesting a lack or gap. Whether it is ss10 shot in a cafeteria against a stark white background or ss11 with the yearbook portraits there is a cleanliness and purity that playfully eminates. At first glance this can be construed as a naivity feigning dishonesty. A very subtle deceptiveness akin to a false consciousness. But then in ss10 you have the ominous shadows and ss11 the eeriness of grown men (sic) posing as adolescents. All this bears witness to something that at least for Schneider is unphraseable, a differend, maybe something that only an Austrian can attempt to tackle and I think this is where Poell with all his atrociousness, violence, and brutal realism enters the fray. To speak to this lack, not bearing witness but actually delineating in gruesome detail a dark period that Austria escaped without repercussions. Germans will forever live in guilt but Austrians were given the tragic gift of amnesia. But what happens when an event so horrific continues festering underneath the induced amnesia causing first a depression and then an outright violent gesture? What may appear as a masochistic/fascist contempt for the body is in fact a transgressive awakening borne out of a responsibility to assign a gravity to all cultural markers escaping the prevailing tendency to treat fashion with a lightness whether it be trivial, fantastical, mechanical or practical. To walk in Poell is to experience this shock, the pain, disjointedness, nakedness, vulnerability, self-deprecation. But also a sense of freedom, the freedom of embracing guilt and responsibility, a recognition of horrible truths, the freedom of being human.

Yet this is so overwhelming, so particular and so foreign within the realm of fashion. Helmut Lang dabbled in similar themes but in a more superfical manner. How does a New Yorker wear Poell? They turn it into art. How does a French person wear Poell? They turn it into philosophy. How does a Japanese person wear Poell? They just wear it. How does an Austrian wear Poell? They live it.

[modern77]

And how does a german wear Poell? ;)
Great post by the way..

[michael_kard]

How does a Greek immigrant with Austrian relatives wear CCP?

But seriously though, an inspiring post.

[copacetic]

What may appear as a masochistic/fascist contempt for the body is in fact... escaping the prevailing tendency to treat fashion with lightness.

You make a lot of heavy proclamations...but I think your post is meant more to be enjoyed as a glimpse into a thought process.

It's dangerous to psychoanalyze all Austrians in context of the early 20th century...but still interesting to think about.

Your above quotation is probably the most true thing you say, and that's why I personally was drawn to Poell. He designs pieces that are heavy...heavy with references to the past, heavy literally (his coats!), heavy in the sense that they can transform your body...

Unbearable Lightness of Being anyone? We're all searching for a little heaviness in our lives...

[BeauIXI]

Hurt me daddy.

[Faust]

Hmmm, deleuze, I wonder what kunk will have to say to that.

[kunk75]

Thanks I've been rendered either the paris hilton or cathryn horyn of sz.

[kunk75]

Fwiw I have always felt Austria abandoned it's identity and shied away from recreating one, maybe the shame makes it easier to recede than to realize a new one.

Interesting discussion the last few pages. Recently I was browsing through some Stephen Schneider collections and Poell's imagery started creeping into my mind. Schneider's work has always disturbed me to an incredible degree. The delicate attentiveness and precise tailoring evocative of an aristocratic sensibility interplayed with the modern ease and wimsy of a post-war cosmopolitanism results in an awkward coherency suggesting a lack or gap. Whether it is ss10 shot in a cafeteria against a stark white background or ss11 with the yearbook portraits there is a cleanliness and purity that playfully eminates. At first glance this can be construed as a naivity feigning dishonesty. A very subtle deceptiveness akin to a false consciousness. But then in ss10 you have the ominous shadows and ss11 the eeriness of grown men (sic) posing as adolescents. All this bears witness to something that at least for Schneider is unphraseable, a differend, maybe something that only an Austrian can attempt to tackle and I think this is where Poell with all his atrociousness, violence, and brutal realism enters the fray. To speak to this lack, not bearing witness but actually delineating in gruesome detail a dark period that Austria escaped without repercussions. Germans will forever live in guilt but Austrians were given the tragic gift of amnesia. But what happens when an event so horrific continues festering underneath the induced amnesia causing first a depression and then an outright violent gesture? What may appear as a masochistic/fascist contempt for the body is in fact a transgressive awakening borne out of a responsibility to assign a gravity to all cultural markers escaping the prevailing tendency to treat fashion with a lightness whether it be trivial, fantastical, mechanical or practical. To walk in Poell is to experience this shock, the pain, disjointedness, nakedness, vulnerability, self-deprecation. But also a sense of freedom, the freedom of embracing guilt and responsibility, a recognition of horrible truths, the freedom of being human.

Yet this is so overwhelming, so particular and so foreign within the realm of fashion. Helmut Lang dabbled in similar themes but in a more superfical manner. How does a New Yorker wear Poell? They turn it into art. How does a French person wear Poell? They turn it into philosophy. How does a Japanese person wear Poell? They just wear it. How does an Austrian wear Poell? They live it.

[Chant]

Would CCP vote Kurt W. for President ?

You make a lot of heavy proclamations...but I think your post is meant more to be enjoyed as a glimpse into a thought process.

It's dangerous to psychoanalyze all Austrians in context of the early 20th century...but still interesting to think about.

Agree on the first point, but not on the second.
Deleuze 's interpretations are more of socio-cultural than strictly psychoanalytical (but I may be wrong), even though the transposition should be possible.

If I follow him correctly, there has been a lack of Entnazifizierung in Austria, as opposed to Germany. It'd mean that instead of Verdrängung of the genocide (no country never really elaborates this kind of trauma - neither did the land of the conquistadores for the genocide of south-america Indians, nor the European pilgrims for the native Americans, or the African slaves), there has been Verwerfung (or, maybe, Verleugnung).
Verdrängung allows guilt, Verwerfung, black hole blindness only - and the election of Kurt W. Not Weill, but Waldheim.

[Chant]

If one tries to track down the specific references to the Nazi past in CCP's work (since we need to speak about specific features imo, or not in general), I'd say that two come immediately to mind. The use of human hair for the tie and the sleeveless coat (FE-MALE 2000/2001), and the fantasy of designing leather jackets from human skin ("Menschenhaut zur Leder verarbeiten" EDIT : "zu" not "zur").

I've already said some words about it here and here, but my point of view is now a bit different.

I'd say that his relation to the Nazi period - and aesthetic, since Nazism is decorum - is not politically correct, but artistically/psychologically correct, since it is a combination of fascination and repulsion - or ironical quoting ?
About fascination : a "sharp fitted silhouette with a quite high waist" ? Hum... The definition can be applied to CCP's blazers as to Kurt W.'s uniform above.

Even the typical scarstitch/overlock collar, linked usually to the classic shirt collar, collar can be reffered to the nazi uniform :

And the new shape of the square belt reminds me the specific outline of the helmet :





About repulsion : his work often refers to the Aktionismus, and the human hair tie as the fantasy of human skin could be seen as a provocation, to spark off the Rückkehr des Verdrängten, like the Aktionisten did.

[docus]

Deleuze and Christian - your thinking has illuminated Poell for me in a new and powerful way - many thanks.

[Faust]

Agree on the first point, but not on the second.
Deleuze 's interpretations are more of socio-cultural than strictly psychoanalytical (but I may be wrong), even though the transposition should be possible.

You maybe wrong. I think he was genuily fucking with you (and the rest of us). But, hey, if it leads to a discussion of Nazi uniforms, it's all good.

[zamb]

SZ has reached the Heavens of intellectual Absurdity, but its brilliant!!!
I like it!!!!!!!!!!!!