Fashion
"Fashion: Mr Death!
Mr. Death!"
The enthronement of
the commodity
and the glitter of distraction around it was the secret theme
of Grandville's art. The corellative to this was the ambivalence
between its utopian and its cynical element. Its refinements in
the representation of dead objects corre sponded to what Marx calls
the 'theological capers' of the commodity. they took clear shape in
the spécialité: under Grandville's pencil, a way of designating goods which came
into use about this time in the
luxury industry, transformed
the whole of nature into specialities. he presented the latter in the same
spirit in which advertisments
- this word too
(réclames) came into existence at
that time - were beginning to present their wares. He ended in
madness." 1935
 "Fashion prescribed the
ritual by
which the fetish Commodity wished to be worshipped, and Grandville
extended the sway of fashion over the objects of
daily use as much as over the cosmos. In pursuing it to its extremes, he
revealed its nature. It stands in opposition to the organic. It
prostitutes the living body
to the inorganic world. in relation to the
living it represents the rights of the corpse.
Fetishism, which succumbs to the sex appeal of the
inorganic,
is its vital nerve; and the cult of the commodity recruits this to its
service." 1935
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