Vol. 3 | Lun*na Menoh | Tosh Berman

Lun*na Menoh’s focus is on clothing. Not only what one wears, but also the history of wearing clothing and what that means to culture, society, finances, politics, and aesthetics. At times, it seems all roads lead to the discussion of clothing, and how that takes part in not only our lives, but reverberates like an echo after the work is presented. Menoh works in painting, sculpture, and sound, all related to clothing. I use the word clothing because I feel “fashion” is too limited in this sense. Fashion does take place in apparel, but it’s only one aspect of that world. Menoh explores the entire world of what it means to make and wear clothing: as something to see, either as a sculpture, painting, or just the clothes themselves.

Menoh is fascinated with the trade that produces and manufactures clothing as well as the structure of the industry and the tools that are used for production. She is interested in the process of laundering, or to be exact, companies that specify their business on getting rid of a dirty collar stain on a men’s, button-down, white shirt. Menoh’s approach is to expose the collar, and therefore spotlight the worker, who must keep up an appearance in front of his co-workers and people outside the factory/office. Menoh’s obsession is to collect these dirty shirt collars. She creates wearable sculptures out of them. Using the filthy collar as a source for making objects such as tea cups, bedding material, furniture, boom-boxes, as well as wedding dresses with long trails. She also paints portraits of well-known musicians, such as David Bowie, Prince, Patti Smith (from the cover of the album Horses, 1975), The Velvet Underground and, of course, The Beatles, in these dirty collars.

The pop musician, like the office worker, must keep up their appearance. Menoh’s painting of David Bowie from the Station to Station era (1976) is iconic, but painting his white collar as sweat-stained gives the image a human touch: a commentary on work, and how every person makes by-products of their daily toil, whether it be in the factory, an office job, or on stage. The inner collar will expose one as a worker who sweats for their job, either due to the physical work or the intensity to produce one’s work. The question is how has the theme or the process of making clothes become music?

Italian Futurist painter, composer, and builder of experimental music instruments, Luigi Russolo, in his 1913 essay “The Art of Noises” (L’arte dei Rumori) comments that the modern sound, otherwise known as “noise,” came from the 19th century when machines were first used. Before that, it was the sound of nature or crowds, for instance, rainstorms, waterfalls, and people chatting. Russolo encouraged the artist and listener to explore the (then) modern city landscape for inspiration, or even better yet, the workplace. Due to machinery, new sounds were being made that fully expressed the “now” of that particular time and place.

Sewing machines are noisy. Imagine a factory full of sewing machines, and they are all on at the same time. Noise or ambient music? Or both? Menoh is very aware of Russolo and loves what she imagines is the industrial sound of the 19th century turning into the 20th. The sewing machine is the first machinery that was used in a family household, before the telephone, the fridge, or the washing machine. The sound of the sewing machine in the house was probably the first noisy object in the domestic landscape. Most likely, it was the mother sewing, making clothes for her children, or perhaps fixing a husband’s jacket or pants. The world judges a person by their appearance, and the wife in a family household had the responsibility to keep up the family’s image. Once the sewing machine became part of the family home, there was no turning back. Machinistic technology held a permanent place in the home.