Of Carbs & Cats

Pick any recent interview with artist Chloe Wise, and one thing becomes very clear – she has moved on from talking about The Bagel N°5. Still, the role this most exclusive carb played is essential to the story. It was one of many in a series of Bread Bags; a bunch of oil-painted plastic mould figurines of toast, baguettes and bagels – a clever pun on the It-bags of the early 2000s.

Givenchy dress, stylist’s own earring

Today, the collection includes timeless classics such as The Ain’t No Challah Back(pack) – a loaf of bread decorated with a Prada logo, and the Louis Vuitton Baguette, but it all began at a Chanel event in 2014, when the sneaky bagel made its red carpet debut dangling on the shoulder of actress India Menuez. The bag, though divinely absurd as an accessory, is a piece of art meant for mounting, and absolutely rubbish as a bag. But still it ended up making a huge impression on the fash- ion world – no one knew it was art. Peo- ple were craving this new Chanel bag, until Chloe came forward as the artist behind the piece and the fashion world fell in love with her instead. When I ask her if the “fashion darling” label affects her work, the answer is: “No, I want it gone, take it away!”

Honesty mixed with humour is the signature of the multidisciplinary artist Chloe Wise. As a self-pronounced megalomaniac, her practise varies from painting and sculpture to poetry and performance, all tied together by that ingenious wit. Over the last years, her humour has developed way beyond the early puns of bread bags to more layered comments on the complexity, and sometimes ridiculousness, of our society. Not that the puns are gone – thank God – there is just another level of depth. “Humour is an imperative way to negotiate the injustices, cruelties, and abject nature of reality,” Chloe says. “Reality is gross and messed up. We can’t, as mere mortals, understand it. So we pretend to, or make jokes.”

Chloe Wise was born in Canada, but with her quick wit, and ability to pull off an haute-couture look, she is very much a New Yorker. In her Brooklyn studio she, together with her constant companion, Siamese cat Pluto,

makes sculptures and paints portraits. “Siamese are quite chatty and talkative, not unlike American Jewesses”, she says, “We are two peas in a pod.” And when asked if this deep kinship includes her unique fashion sense as well, she replies, “He does engage in some looks. He has a few hats. Marc Jacobs sent him a tiny red beret, and I just brought him back a tiny sombrero from my trip to Mexico.”

In one of her latest exhibitions, Of False Beaches and Butter Money, there was much more going on than first met the eye. A bare-breasted blonde pressing two onions against her chest, and a kneeling woman carefully cradling a carton of almond milk, are two examples of the portraits of milk-dripping venuses that were on display. The show centered around themes of food fetishism, health and nutrition – digging around the vast question of why we try to find truth in the murky world of clean living. “I was in Thailand when I first started thinking about the wholesome moral narrative attributed to dairy in the West,” Chloe begins. “Milk, in Thailand and Korea, pops up in advertisements for soaps that whiten the skin. Which is pretty creepy when you think about it from an American standpoint, where we are dealing with deeply entrenched white supremacy. That made me look at the way advertising for milk can easily co-opt different moral narrative qualities, such as this ancient-old-timey-historic-alpine-swiss-mountain-top-cattle-and-buxom-milkmaid imagery that we are used to seeing all over supermarket aisles. That fictional aura contrasts starkly with the reality of the dairy industry. It’s funny to me how far off the advertising is, purporting milk to be ‘natural’.”

Left: Moschino dress, Givenchy boots, stylist’s own T-shirt & cowboy hat
Right: Chanel dress, boots & jewellery, stylist’s own cap

Calvin Klein 205w39nyc full look

Chloe Wise is often depicted as an artist of her time: a true millennial. But when it comes to describing her own position, she is reluctant. “I don’t think we can describe our time because we are currently within it. We can look at the 90s and begin to describe it or the- orise it, but I really don’t know if it does any good to try to analyse our zeitgeist from within. That being said, yeah I’m a millennial, and I guess my alleged love for avocado toast is ruining the housing market, or whatever; but I think we are just witnessing a moment of increasing access to information, true and untrue.”

Perhaps the knack for advertising aesthetics, interest in consumer behaviour and this uncanny ability to be very “now” is why Chloe Wise’s persona translates so well onto social media. She navigates the present with ease; it feels completely natural. Still, her account is somewhere in-between personal and a performance. You just can’t tell. It is a perfect mix of art, selfies, goofing around and of course, cats. Last year she adopted a blue-eyed Siamese kitten dubbed Pluto Chicken Nugget Wise. “It took a long time to name him. I was thinking he should have a strong, heroic, kinda tragic but beautiful ancient Greek or Roman name, like Heraclitus or Perseus. Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld. Also the name of the Disney dog, and the name of an ex-planet. I liked the multifaceted nature of the name, it suits him well because he is a multifaceted boy. Also, he looks just like a chicken nugget so that’s where he got the middle name.”