EMMA T PRICE

ECKHAUS LATTA: POSSESSED

Eckhaus Latta: Possessed is a museum show and operational temporary store built inside of the Whitney Museum of American Art that engages ideas of consumerism and voyeurism. The entry space gives a feeling of being behind the scenes, as exposed metal studs and conduit are paired with glossy high-fashion photographs displayed on large light boxes. The main space of the store is filled with fixtures (racks, hooks, tables, dressing room curtains, benches, etc.) produced by a range of young artists, but purposefully resists the reading of a group show, overlapping works and blending them into a decidedly other kind of museum experience. The clothes and accessories in the space are available for purchase. The third space is a surveillance room, with one entire wall taken up by a grid of monitors showing footage of other boutiques selling Eckhaus Latta’s clothes, as well as a live feed of the Whitney store. A pair of two-way mirrors, innocuous from the store side as a small mirror above the sunglasses shelf and a full-length one near the dressing room area, provide an uncomfortably intimate view from the surveillance room of the shopping happening beyond.

In designing the space, it was critical to think through not only the creepy moments of revelatory surveillance at the end of the sequence, but also the radical invitation to undress in a museum gallery space. The design of the store portion of the space actively works against the white box gallery feeling in order to make this proposal of playing store palatable and fun, even as the distinction between public and private, store and show, and art and fashion are brought into question.