Trivial Pursuit
Ana Viktoria Dzinic – Alessia Gunawan
Iris Luz – Sara Yukiko Mon – Erica Skye Ohmi
Hannah Taurins – Inez Valentine

Curated by Daisy Sanchez

March 30, 2022 – May 15, 2022

“After fashion – the group show”

Trivial Pursuit brings together a coterie of artists working in fashion and through fashion.

In 1949, a 21-year-old Andy Warhol was fresh out of art school and trying to drum up interest in his drawings when he landed his first job as a fashion illustrator for an article in Glamour, aptly titled “Success is a Job in New York.” The economic pressures of being a young artist led Franco Moschino down a similar trajectory. Moschino left art school as a painter, but soon transitioned into working as a fashion illustrator for Versace. “Making money in art was difficult… The easiest way to make money was to use art for some other reason. One of the easiest and most interesting from an economic point of view was fashion.” Why depart from the lofty pursuit of fine art for the market-friendly vulgarities of fashion? As Moschino put it simply: “Fashion pays.” While Moschino’s stint in fashion led to the launch of his eponymous line, Warhol’s novel shoe illustrations soon found him considerable commercial recognition that enabled him to pursue a dedicated art practice.

In a 1987 interview, artist Sherie Levine opined that many of her contemporaries privileged the influence of theory, a so-called “intellectual pursuit,” in their work, out of fear that they wouldn’t be taken seriously if they addressed the trivial– the fraught, inescapable pleasure of fashion. The trivial pursuit is denigrated, but why shy away from a girlish conceit? Contemporary art scoffs at the overt commercialization of fashion, yet this is what has propelled it to become a far more dominant cultural force. Its vast network reaches publics far outside the museum-going cohort, and the artists who participate in this system often achieve the highest mainstream relevance. Although both spheres trade in cultural commodities, for an artist to engage with fashion is often to become a commodity traitor. 

Art historian TJ Clark has decried photographer Cecil Beaton’s 1951 series of fashion models posing in front of Pollock canvases for Vogue. Clark lampooned the photographs as “nightmarish” images that reduced Pollock to “glib, superficial form,” that “speak to the hold of capitalist culture.” The Pollock paintings had been recently on display at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, but this salable exhibition was not mentioned in his critique of market forces. Clark argued that “fashions change, art endures,” as if both do not continually reinvent themselves. As fashion progresses through trend cycles, art develops through movements. Pollock serves as inspiration for legions of contemporary artists; likewise, mid-century fashions provide rich fodder for current designers. Fashion mines history as art alleges to investigate it, just as fashion looks forward as art claims to envision new futures.

In 1984, the creator of a trivia board game sued the game show Trivial Pursuit, alleging that the tv program had stolen his trivia. At the heart of the case was the question of whether facts were intellectual property. The judge ruled in favor of Trivial Pursuit, concluding that facts, like ideas, were not copyrightable. They can be bought and sold, as Andy Warhol bought the idea for his Campbell’s Soup paintings, or, like the influence that sprung from Warhol’s pop pioneering, they can be traded, appropriated, remixed, and continually reworked and revamped.  

The idea of fashion, much like the image of fashion, is mutable and constantly evolving in mass reproduction and reinvention. In his seminal “Pictures” essay, curator Douglas Crimp, whose first job in New York was for couturier Charles James, argues that our experience is “governed” by images and representations in magazines, which he calls “the most debased of our cultural conventions.” Magazines, like Warhol’s Glamour, were to Roland Barthes the “machine that makes Fashion.” Fast forward to the present–Instagram has since displaced magazines as the primary dispersion agent for the idea and image of fashion.

What is in vogue no longer appears in Vogue–it is filtered through an algorithm and disseminated onto the streets. The byproducts of this machine materialize in the well-dressed downtown waif, the Lucky Jewel or Café Forgot girl. The immaculately composed outfits of this vanguard are not a signifier of class as much as they are often a signifier of hyper-engagement with facets of fashion online and off–of dedicated research into the dregs of Poshmark, eBay, and Yahoo JP listings, or hunting escapades at James Veloria, Laura Koleji, and Beacon’s in search of SS ‘99 or FW xy&z, of fervently following independent designers in the Instagram to SSENSE clearance sale pipeline, of a phone timer calibrated to the Telfar drop, and/or of carefully crafted personal branding on social media rewarded by #ad gifted designer wares. Outfits are class bluffs–dressing down to skirt familial privilege or dressing up to flex the fruits of ceaseless hustle. Rent is high, wages are low, but you have to dress the part anyway.

The projection of success is a job in New York.

Full Press Release

Exhibition Press

The Face – Trivial Pursuit is the coolest fashion exhibition in NYC by TJ Sidhu

Ana Viktoria Dzinic (b. 1994, Schwelm, DE) lives and works in London, UK. Dzinic received a BA in Media from Central Saint Martins College, London and an MFA from Goldsmiths University, London. She is a digital concepts consultant for Balenciaga, and founded and co-runs the digital project space dieinternet.org. Recent exhibitions include Cute Core Kinder Whore on dieinternet.org (2022), London Grads Now at Saatchi Gallery, London (2021), Access 2, Wells Project, London (2021), Access Art Trail, London (2021), and Dio in the face of god, dieinternet.org (2021).

Alessia Gunawan (b. 1995, Jakarta, ID) lives and works between London, Milan, and Jakarta. Gunawan received a BA in Photographic Arts from the University of Westminster, London and an MA in Photography from Écal, Laussane. Gunawan has exhibited in Almusibli Panorama at Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève (2020), Cherish Gallery, Geneva (2020), and THE GNOSIS SHOW, curated by Tosia Leniarska, at Daisy’s Room, London (2021). Her work has been published in Novembre Magazine, THE FADER, COEVAL, Gruppe Magazine, Dune Journal, and It’s Nice That.

Iris Luz (b. 1995, London, UK) lives and works in London, UK. Luz received a BA in Fashion Branding from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. She is the founder and editor of PC Erotic magazine, published by Ditto, London. Luz is a radio host for Know Wave, panelist for Show Studio, and former social media editor for Dazed Beauty. She has photographed for and undertaken artistic collaborations with brands such as Ashley Williams, Balenciaga, Praying, Mimi Wade, Bimba Y Lola, and for The Face, i-D, and Interview magazines. Trivial Pursuit is her first gallery exhibition. 

Sara Yukiko Mon (b. 1996, San Francisco, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Mon received a BA in Design | Media Arts from UCLA. She has exhibited in a two-person exhibition with Chris Lloyd at Gern en Regalia, New York (2020), and as part of a group exhibition at A.D., New York (2022). Her work has been reviewed in various publications including Artforum, Editorial Magazine, and Elephant Magazine. She collaborated with Celine for their Men’s Spring/Summer 2022 Collection, and is a graphic designer for Calvin Klein. 

Erica Skye Ohmi (b. 1997, New York, NY) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Ohmi received a BFA from Pratt College, Brooklyn. She has executed artistic collaborations with Alexander Wang, the Grotesque Archive, and Stephan Cooke. She has worked as a fabricator for Urs Fischer and Darren Bader, and is currently a graphic designer for Tom Sachs. Trivial Pursuit is her first gallery exhibition.

Hannah Taurins (b. 1997, Houston, TX) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Taurins received a BFA in Fine Art from The Cooper Union. Prior to her debut solo exhibition Cover Girl at Theta, New York (2022), Taurins worked as a vintage dealer selling rare designer pieces, as well as modeling for brands such as Batsheva and Nicole Saldana. Her upcoming exhibitions include Standard, Oslo (2023) and In Lieu, Los Angeles (2022). 

Inez Valentine (b. 1998, London, UK) lives and works in London. Valentine received a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College, London. Valentine has exhibited in The End (solo), at Daisy’s Room, London (2021), and participated in group exhibitions such as The Grotto, co-curated by Chloée Maugile and Laurie Barron, at Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022), Objects (lost), Treasure (found) at Underground Flower, London (2021), and Paperweight, curated by Joe Bradley Hill, at 18 Malden Rd, London (2019). Valentine has done artistic collaborations with Marine Serre for LN-CC, Max Pearmain for Re-edition magazine, Harry Freegard for The Face magazine, and LGBT venue Vogue Fabrics Dalston, as well as designing her own line of clothing under the moniker Aircrush.

Daisy Sanchez (b. 1998, Salzburg, AT) lives and works in New York, NY. Sanchez received a BA in from the Visual Cultures department of Central Saint Martins College, London, and flunked out of the Courtauld, London. Her previous curatorial exploits include The Void (2021) for White Columns, online, and Rawr means I love you in dinosaur (2019) for Lubov, NY. Sanchez founded Daisy’s Room, a project space that ran out of a bedroom in London from 2020-2021, and staged five exhibitions, including THE GNOSIS SHOW, guest curated by Tosia Leniarska.