Heavenly Bodies isn’t the only fashion exhibit occupying a major New York City museum this summer. Come August 3, Eckhaus Latta will stage a comparatively less mega but equally groundbreaking solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Titled Eckhaus Latta: Possessed, the exhibition will form part of the Whitney’s emerging artist series in the first-floor John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Gallery. Possessed will feature photographs riffing on iconic advertisements, a fully operational pop-up shop, and a creepy-sounding darkened room evoking the tracking and surveillance aspects of shopping. The exhibition is also the Whitney’s first fashion installation in 21 years: since The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion back in 1997. But it’s not Eckhaus’s first museum rodeo: the brand has previously infiltrated MoMA PS1 and Los Angeles’s MoCA.
Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta have long been tied to NYC’s downtown art scene, working as part of a wider creative circle of artists, musicians, and actors, many of whom are runway fixtures at their New York Fashion Week shows. The Whitney show will highlight the collaboration-focused fashion/art crossover that characterizes downtown New York fashion now: Mike and Zoe Eckhaus interns have included Claire Sully and David Moses of Vaquera, and Esther Gauntlett and Jenny Cheng of Gauntlett Cheng, while Dev Hynes and Moses Sumney have composed unique scores for Eckhaus’s runway outings. Their Whitney collaborators include Susan Cianciolo, Martine Syms, Jessi Reaves, and Avena Gallagher, who has previously styled for Eckhaus.
“As part of the Whitney’s emerging artist program, we sometimes showcase creative figures outside of the visual arts,” said Possessed co-curator Christopher Y. Lew. “These figures from fields such as fashion, music, architecture, design, and food approach their disciplines in ways that are akin to visual artists, often questioning the systems and parameters that define what they do, speaking to the broader cultural moment, and blurring the boundaries between disciplines.”
“Eckhaus Latta: Possessed” runs from August 3 through October 8, 2018.