Well Hung
            Retail Installation Concept
            2014
            Los Angeles

“The pews were not moved. But the cross was covered over and a catwalk set up in the center aisle. It took eight days for the heater fans to drive the cold out of the church. The girls waited in the sacristy and on the organ loft for their cue. And Luca Gadjus, the model who lives just around the corner, opened a fashion show that was an iconoclastic act and at the same time a profession of faith.”  This is how fashion journalist Alfons Kaiser began his article “Jesus must love Michalsky,” on the Fall/Winter 2009 fashion show featuring creations by Michael Michalsky, held in a Protestant church on January 30, 2009.¹

Michalsky adopts the space of worship in affirming the liminality between the viewing of fashion and liturgic ritual. Rather than confirm, the installation hints at such liminality. In place of appropriating the space of worship to achieve a sacred ambiance, the project configures the clothing rack to stage occurrences that slip in and out of divine reverence. Well Hung posits the rack as an inverted pedestal that elevates an uncanny array of adorned mannequins to the effect of displacing the gaze of the viewing subject. This displacement fittingly expels the fashion object from a space of commodification to one of reflection.