The Hoodie, Het Nieuwe Instituut, December 2019 – August 2020
This exhibition considers the role of a fashion garment as a socio-political carrier. The hoodie is a staple of contemporary dress, hyped as a trend and a must-have item; but elsewhere it is also a topic of moral panic, banned by certain institutions and dissected by the media as an emblem of inequality, crime or deviancy. While the hoodie provides safety and comfort for some wearers, others will face prejudice and discrimination, preferring to put the hood down in public. This inequality can be traced back to the question of who can wear a hoodie without hindrance, which is once again reconstituted by Covid-19 – the same applies to any form of head or face covering, even if it is ‘acceptable’ from a medical point of view.
“As a garment, the hoodie defines our times – it tells many stories about social inequality, subcultures, police brutality, racism, privacy, fear and, in turn, fashion. It is fashion’s last truly political garment – a garment that you can lose your life for wearing, a garment that can incite fear, jealously, comradery and even fury in others.” – Lou Stoppard, curator
Featured artists include Devan Shimoyama, Vetements, John Edmonds, Sasha Huber, David Hammons, Tiane Doan na Champassak, Prem Sahib, Dana Lixenberg, Hank Willis Thomas, Danielle van Ark, Bogomir Doringer, Thorsten Brinkmann, Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, Lisette Appeldorn, Campbell Addy, Lucy and Jorge Orta and Wouter Paijmans, amongst others.
Supporting text contribuited by Antwaun Sargent: “The arrival of the hoodie in contemporary art is a reflection of the ways the garment thrown over the head of a Black male is a political event as much as it is a sartorial one.”
Exhibition on show at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam from 1 December 2019 – 23 August 2020