Art Shoes

Is there anything in clothing that evokes and conveys so much fascination, passion and sex appeal as the shoe? Is there anything in fashion that is compared more frequently to art than the shoe?

ART SHOES focuses on the shoe as a work of art, therefore the other side of the shoe that we know as practical or fashionable objects of everyday use.

This exhibit is not about the shoe that one can wear or even try on for size. Not the one that one walks around in. Not even those items created by designers from all over the world (no matter how creative or artistic they are). ART SHOES exclusively shows the shoe in the direct context of autonomous visual art.

The international exhibition ART SHOES explores how daily reality changes through the eye and hand of the artist. The shoe can be seen as the artist’s answer to ever so mundane objects with which we tread the earth every day and are able to cope with the world.

The shoe, as an object of art, can be seen in various techniques in ART SHOES. From images and objects to drawings and paintings, from advertisements and pictures to installations. Whether the shoes are comfortable, whether they are even suitable to be worn or to walk in, is entirely irrelevant to the artist and therefore immaterial. Indeed, this exhibition explores whether the shoe has a story to tell that goes beyond its practical use.

Since the mid-50s, Pop Art artists have been using elements of our daily reality as the subject of art. The shoe was literally and figuratively leading the way in this development. Before bursting onto the scene as an artist, Andy Warhol worked in advertising as an illustrator of shoes. The drawings from this period paved the way for his later work and thereby for all the themes from our consumer society which he used in the visual arts. For decades, they played an important role for many artists the world over.

Women’s shoes in particular have long since passed the stage of being practical everyday objects. Shoes have become paragons of beauty. Ideas of luxury, statements about gender and images of women, expressions of fetishism and finishing touches of physicality.

From there, it’s only a small step to art. Art in which the shoe becomes a symbol for man and his steps in life.

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