With a firm commitment to the avant-garde, Fier Management brought not only fashion but also fine art to their opening event at The WYE. Performances by Dr. Jessica Bugg and installations by Iris Schieferstein and Sasha Kanevski walked the trembling line between fashion and art, presenting the perfect opportunity to investigate the boundaries between these two worlds. 

After all, what makes a fashion show different from a performance piece? How do we differentiate between a textile-based sculpture and a sculptural textile? When does an installation become a piece of art rather than merely an arrangement of objects? These questions fester at the intersection of art and fashion and demand redress.

The Corner of Contemporary Art an Couture

A sculptural chandelier comprised of white doves choking on lightbulbs hangs close to eye-level in the entrance, offering an etherial and vaguely menacing welcome to the Fier Management performance space on the second floor of The WYE. Several feet back (no pun intended), hooves form the basis for elegant heels that lean seductively against white columns. Another pair sports a taxidermied squirrel supported by ballet laces that would climb up the now-absent leg.

Animal Cruelty? Sculptural chandelier on display at the The Wye in Berlin. Photo: Chris Phillips

Reminiscent of Jake and Dinos’ Chapman’s elegant “Fucking with Nature” in which stuffed cats dogs, rabbits squirrels and foxes play side by side on a see-saw, the whimsical objects crafted by Iris Shieferstein encourage recognition of the process by which animals are transformed into material—something new, something utilitarian, something unrecognizable. Not content to exist merely as consumables, these objects blur the line between shoe and foot, between material and maker, between art and accessory.

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