Bárbara Sánchez-Kane revels in the kind of artful provocation that comes from appropriating and dismantling prescribed notions of gender roles, dress codes, and beauty standards. The Mexican artist and fashion designer takes every opportunity to skewer patriarchal norms, riffing on the “collapse”—a word she often uses—of traditional gender expression in the pursuit of radical self-invention. That Sánchez-Kane prefers the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘he’—used interchangeably—is likely a provocation in itself. Why not?
If Marcel Duchamp’s ironic readymades come to mind, or the Surrealist objects of Meret Oppenheim, or the conceptual fashion collections of Martin Margiela, or the clothing-cum-furniture of Hussein Chalayan—whom Sánchez-Kane cites as inspiration—you’re on the right track.