Nil Yalter
Drawings: 41.5 x 51.5 cm, 31.5 x 41.5 cm
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Composed of an installation displaying a 1928 Lanvin haute couture dress, a single channel video, a series of photographs and drawings, “The AmbassaDRESS” is based on archival material and a historical narrative blending fact and fiction, centered on the wife of an unnamed ambassador to Germany in the years before and during the Second World War. According to the narrative, the dress was worn by the ambassador’s wife on a diplomatic occasion where she danced with leading figures of the Nazi German Labour Government in the 1940s. This fact, coupled with the character's declaration, printed on one of the drawings, that they were unaware of the existence of extermination camps, points to the role of privilege and indifference in the perpetuation of large-scale violence and genocide. Although the dress is at the core of the installation, Nil Yalter refrains from reproducing the dominant narrative which invariably ascribes a marginal position to the “female” identity, as a figure devoid of legitimate representation. By displaying a series of drawings detailing the making of the Lanvin dress, she approaches the institution of power and violence as a collective process permeating every aspect of society, including culture and design. In Yalter’s subtle composition, through fragmented visual and narrative elements, the anatomy of a dress reveals the anatomy of power. The accompanying abstract video and series of black and white photographs reveal the anatomy of the dress seen from the inside out, from the elusive point of view of the body wearing it. The video bears the split-screen symmetry emblematic of Yalter's work across decades and media, reminiscent of the modernist grid. Every fold, every crease, along with the rust stains that dot the fabric of the dress, are subject to repetition and mirroring. Juxtaposed with the fluidity of the moving silk, the resulting form questions not only the historical events of the time, but also abstraction as an artistic strategy, capable of becoming a tool at the service of both emancipation and repression.
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