METTEZ UNE CHAUSETTE LA-DENDANS!
(PUT A SOCK IN IT!)
Examples of sock imagery abound throughout art history
Okay, so a superficial recreation of Modernism using images of Argyll socks (and other laundry imagery) is not the most sophisticated of enterprises. Some might say it was even a waste of time. But those party poopers underestimate the pleasures of the persistent pursuit of obsession, not to mention the exquisite humiliation of attempting to mimic the style and technique of great art. And since I am an art conservator, it was a lot of good practice to boot. Anyway, the juxtaposition of high and low is my favorite field to plow.
The following pseudo-essay served as the wall text for the various gallery installations, which consisted of approximately thirty objects (see photo). In the catalogue form, it was joined by an introduction, dedication and a long and rambling academic treatise (by a different invented author) with pages of footnotes.
It is not surprising that socks have provided inspiration for artists over the millennia. As a relatively late (and, even now, theoretically optional) addition to the historical wardrobe, socks can be as pedestrian and private as the undergarment or as decorative and public as the tie or jewel. An object replete with the loaded implication of its role as one of a pair, and the symbolic importance of its mediation between the foot and the shoe, protecting each from the other, the sock is a rich source of fertile yet problematic imagery for creative interpretation.
Examples of sock imagery abound throughout art history (selected exemplars can be seen here) but it is the symbiotic relationship between the idiom of the sock and Modern and Contemporary Art which is particularly compelling and thus the focus of our concern. Particularly notable in this respect is the Argyll, as reliable a workhorse of Cubist iconography as, for instance, the bowl of fruit or the guitar. With its duality of flowing and amorphous form on the one hand and precise geometric pattern on the other, the Argyll makes reference to historic antecedents as diverse as Minoan decoration, Baroque space or Romanticism (perhaps especially Delacroix) with the same vigorous validity as it does to the rigorous rectitude of Cubism, Constructivism or Pop Art. Yet, this is not a simple case of convenient formalistic similarity, although some might (and have) expressed that short-sighted opinion in their prejudicial publications! In fact, in this case, form perfectly reflects and confronts more vexing dichotomies such as conformity (“matching”, “inside out”) or privilege (dry cleaning/hand washing, darning/rejection). Of course, such explorations have not been limited to socks, but even when considered within the broader sphere of laundry in general (representing as it does the cyclical nature of rejuvenation), the sock remains an unavoidable, if not uniquely pivotal, participant in any truthful consideration of household functioning as representative of the creative urge.
The art of our own time has manifested a continuation, a strengthening and, paradoxically, a rejection of the sock as portrayed in Modernism. Artistic strategies now often encompass less overt fascinations, and the sock, in practical and artistic terms, has become part of a seamless continuum with other clothing in form, content and discontent. Perhaps too engaging and fruitful a symbol for this era of profound alienation, artists are now sensitive to what the sock is not, rather than what it is, portraying, for instance the space within (or without) the sock, the change in laundry cycles rather than the cycle itself, hot air rather than the drier. The sock as a dynamic equilibrium of opposites has been replaced by an ill-defined and unsettling unity. Seldom paired when depicted in art, accepting of neither foot nor shoe, stripped of design an ornament, the sock has become a threatening presence, enveloping more to devour than to protect, and in so doing, it has become as succinct a reflection of the present culture as of earlier ones.