What is dandyism? It cannot be defined, as attitudes are always difficult to describe. Who is a dandy? Nowadays the term dandy has been so overused that it has almost lost its meaning. Dandies were not just handsome and eccentric men who lived in a particular historical moment, they have in fact become part of the black on white of the page, they have turned into text, becoming protagonists of novels and plays or cases of study of dissertations or essays. Hence, Dandyism may only be described when someone or some feat, represents it: a historical, or not so much, character (Brummell in Honoré de Balzac's Treatise on Elegant Living, Barbey d'Aurevilly's The Anatomy of Dandyism, Count Robert of Montesquiou, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Jean Lorrain's Monsieur de Phocas); a work of art and artist (Guys' drawings, Baudelaire's writings or Manet's paintings); the protagonist of a novel (so many, but above all, Huysmans' Against Nature); or a thespian actor (Wilde).
In this peculiar history of dandies, each one of its protagonists contributed with a new concept or developed a strategy already conceived by a predecessor; concepts and strategies that have come together and have been assimilated by several contemporary artists. Dandyism may have been the basis for some of the innovations of the avant-gardes and other artistic trends of the twentieth century and for the construction of the artist as an idea.
Taking Sur le dandysm aujourd'hui. From Shop Window Mannequin to Media Star as starting point, these lectures strive to create a space for reflecting, questioning and debating over some of this concepts and stances, taking on the experience from two of the artists featured in the exhibition—Ignasi Aballí and Juan Luis Moraza—as well as from two exhibition curators— Jean-Yves Jouannais and Jeremy Millar—whose work has dealt at some point with this topic. On dandyism, ways of doing and ways of seeing.
In this peculiar history of dandies, each one of its protagonists contributed with a new concept or developed a strategy already conceived by a predecessor; concepts and strategies that have come together and have been assimilated by several contemporary artists. Dandyism may have been the basis for some of the innovations of the avant-gardes and other artistic trends of the twentieth century and for the construction of the artist as an idea.
Taking Sur le dandysm aujourd'hui. From Shop Window Mannequin to Media Star as starting point, these lectures strive to create a space for reflecting, questioning and debating over some of this concepts and stances, taking on the experience from two of the artists featured in the exhibition—Ignasi Aballí and Juan Luis Moraza—as well as from two exhibition curators— Jean-Yves Jouannais and Jeremy Millar—whose work has dealt at some point with this topic. On dandyism, ways of doing and ways of seeing.
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