Radical Fashions: Juliana Huxtable
September 2017
Hamish Morrow reviews Juliana Huxtable's new show at Project Native Informant.
Last week, Juliana Huxtable opened her first solo show outside of the US at London's Project Native Informant. The mercurial artist, musician and performer presented an articulate meditation on the signifying power of military surplus clothing and skinhead fashion. In Huxtable’s exhibition clothing itself is something to be “occupied”, as one might a political space. Using the slogans “Corporal Anarchy”, “Anti-alternative FASHION” and “Swastikafetish", the show addresses and reconstitutes fashion staples such as the MA-1 flight jacket, Fred Perry polo shirts and Ben Sherman. These are examples of clothing worn equally by followers of fashion, anti-racist skinheads or supporters of the far-right, to represent very different, identities, political intentions and allegiances, if any at all. Huxtable understands what it means to be in a constant state of becoming, where every gesture is a perpetual vanishing point, needing to be repeated endlessly. In such a state of flux, clothing operates as a powerful interface of communication between the world and the body of the wearer. Her refiguring of these iconic pieces gives us pause to consider the complex and contradictory meanings that emerge when we all wear the same clothes.