“The red dress a fortiori holds with all its fibers onto the fabric of the visible, and thereby onto a fabric of invisible being. A punctuation in the field of red things, which includes the tiles of roof tops, the flags of gatekeepers, and of the Revolution, certain terrains near Aix or in Madagascar, it is also a punctuation in the field of red garments, which includes, along with the dresses of women, robes of professors, bishops, and advocate generals, and also in the field of adornments and that of uniforms. And this red literally is not the same as it appears in one constellation or in the other, as the pure essence of the Revolution of 1917 precipitates in it, or that of the eternal feminine, or that of the public prosecutor, or that of the gypsies dressed like hussars who reigned twenty-five years ago over an inn in the Champs Elysées. A certain red is also a fossil drawn up from the depths of imaginary worlds. If we took all these participations into account we would recognize that a naked color, and in general a visible, is not a chunk of absolutely hard indivisible being offered all naked to a vision which could be only total or null, but is rather a sort of straits between exterior horizons ever gaping open….Between the alleged colors and visibles, we would find anew the tissue that lines them, sustains them, nourishes them, and which for its part is not a thing, but a possibility, a latency, and flesh of things.“ Maurice Merleau-Ponty The Visible and the Invisible, Followed by Working Notes, Edited by Claude Lefort. Translated by Alphonso Lingis, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968 pp. 132-33.
Independent Visual Artist Leah Durner is lead co-chair, with Jorella Andrews, Goldsmiths, University of London co-chair, of the panel Fashion: tissue, textile, toile, College Art Association 112th Annual Conference, Chicago 14 – 17 February 2024. The panel is Saturday 17 February 2:30 – 4:00 CST, 8th floor Lake Erie Room, Chicago Hilton. Other panelists are Pragya Sharma, University of Brighton, Christopher Rudeen, Harvard University, Lauren Downing Peters, Columbia College, and Emma McClendon, St. John’s University.
Leah Durner durner.leah@gmail.com 917.251.9867 www.leahdurner.com Instagram: @leahdurner cover image: Angry Woman wearing Dior from Fierce series, 2024 charcoal and gouache on paper 60 x 48 in 152.4 x 121.92 cm
FASHION LEAH DURNER