Exhibition: Armin Morbachs 'Fashion Messies' Vertical Gallery

Düsseldorf`s Hotel InterContinental is hosting its third Vertical Gallery:
Armin Morbach: Fashion Messies


The artist elaborating his concept...


...wearing a Terry Richardson cap at the press conference.


Picture on the second floor.


The vertical gallery inside Hotel InterContinental: the installation stretches through eleven floors with one picture per floor hanging opposite of the glass-elevator. With going up and down one can see the pictures evolve like a flip-book.


The creators of the exhibition (left to right): Ronald Hoogerbrugge, General Manager InterContinental Düsseldorf, Armin Morbach, Aline Schade, Sales Manager munichfashion.company and Werner Lippert, curator NRW-Forum


Morbach collected fourthousand plastic bags for this project...


...and stapled them onto furniture and walls to create the 'messie set' which creates the extreme contrast to the white high fashion.


Picture on the eleventh floor, where the photography reaches its climax with the most persons in one picture.


Morbach shot the series in his studio in Hamburg, built the set and did the styling himself.


And finally, here`s me.

Pictures by DressCode:Highfashion, Creative Commons License: 2.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Morbach raises interesting questions on consumerism and our validation of objects in his exhibition. When somebody piles up 500 empty cans f.e. we consider the person a "gross messie", but when a woman has collected 500 pair of shoes we think its cool.
So, where do we draw the line? Why are huge amounts of certain goods acceptable and others are not? How is it, that we only consider the collecting of cheap objects compulsive and don`t apply the same logic to luxury items?

I was impressed with the exhibition. The clearity, details, contrasts, colours and contradictions in Morbach`s photography are amazing. I was even more impressed when I learned that he is an autodidact (in photography) and did the entire realization himself. It is ultra-rare that one person possesses all the skills to create such a series: the vision, the filigree skills and the artisan skills.

Amin Morbach has clearly established himself as one of the most important contemporary german fashion photographers and set up an installation that is very worth seeing.

The exhibition is running from february 2nd until april 1st 2012.