In the complex and opaque realm of clothing manufacturing, artist Hendrickje Schimmel, known as Tenant of Culture, highlights the challenges of tracing the origins and production conditions of garments. She adopts a reverse production approach, dismantling secondhand clothing that is approaching obsolescence. By examining items sourced from eBay or thrift stores, she investigates components for insights about their construction, design intentions, and durability. Subsequently, she reconstructs these materials through her unique artistic vision, blending various styles and techniques.

The pieces currently showcased in her debut U.S. solo exhibitions critique the rampant waste and overconsumption in the fashion industry. Some works are transformed into abstract forms, while others retain recognizable elements of clothing, albeit in strikingly altered and innovative ways.

Tenant of Culture’s artistic practice aims to prolong the fleeting nature of fashion, transforming discarded materials into meticulously crafted sculptures. At “Host: Tenant of Culture” at The Contemporary Austin (open until August 3rd), her piece Puzzlecut Boot Brown (2021) features a singular heel constructed from various shoe soles and adorned with purse straps and belt buckles. Meanwhile, “Science and Worms” at Ehrlich Steinberg in Los Angeles (open until April 5th) showcases a new collection of similarly deconstructed footwear, including Sabotage in Acrylic (series nr 3) (2025), crafted from a synthetic Zara sweater that had trendy, machine-made holes. Schimmel painstakingly repaired these holes by hand, emphasizing the contrast between “industrial time” and “craft time”: “Something that was produced in probably less than half an hour took months and months to restore.” Found secondhand with its tag still attached, the sweater exemplifies the rapid turnover of fast fashion, having been discarded before it was ever worn.

Tenant of Culture’s Critique of Fashion

Schimmel’s background includes designing outerwear for a mid-sized company after studying garment-making at London’s Royal College of Art and interning at Alexander McQueen. However, she became disillusioned with the industry’s secretive practices and wasteful tendencies, stating, “Everything that fashion produces is already on its way to be destroyed.”

She adopted the name Tenant of Culture, inspired by Michel de Certeau’s 1974 work, The Practice of Everyday Life, which discusses the reinterpretation of mass-produced goods as a means for consumers to assert their individuality. The term “Tenant” signifies her independence from any fashion house. “The whole idea of Tenant of Culture is going against the constant material innovation and newness that fashion demands, and seeing how far and how differently you can go with the same materials,” she noted.

In contemporary art, textiles are often created or sourced by artists from an outsider’s viewpoint, translating visual art into fiber language. In contrast, textile production is Schimmel’s primary medium, allowing her to explore materials structurally and innovate with stitching techniques akin to a painter’s brushstrokes. “I have my own methods of making that probably don’t at all meet the standards of industrial technique,” she commented, freeing her from the constraints of functional clothing production.

Schimmel closely follows trends, integrating them into her work while uncovering historical references often overlooked in popular culture. Her 2019 exhibition, “Eclogues (an apology for actors),” at NıCOLETTı in London, critiqued the romanticization of the medieval milkmaid prevalent in high street fashion. In her 2023 show “Ladder,” she addressed fashion’s use of distressed fabrics as mere decoration, tracing back to the 16th-century trend of slashed sleeves among European nobility, inspired by the worn clothing of returning soldiers. In a modern twist, she cut gashes into the packaging of online clothing orders for her “Haul” series, creating striking soft sculptures with contrasting colors and textures, some embellished with delicate bows.

Exploring Fashion’s Lifecycle through Art

Tenant of Culture is represented by Soft Opening in London and Galerie Fons Welters in Amsterdam, with works included in the permanent collections of Het Fries and Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands. Her transition from the fashion industry to the art world has unveiled new perspectives. During an early gallery exhibition in 2017, viewers labeled her work as “trendy,” a term Schimmel later recognized as an insult. Unlike fashion’s transient nature, she came to understand that art is expected to endure beyond a certain timeframe.

Her current exhibition, “Science and Worms,” at Ehrlich Steinberg, juxtaposes the concepts of “fashion time” and “museum time,” abstracting traditional conservation methods to apply them to deteriorating shoes. Schimmel discovered the extensive efforts dedicated to preserving materials not intended for longevity, as well as some conservators’ aims to maintain the precise point of an object’s decay. Among her new “Receptacles” sculptures, some shoes are fused at the soles to unusual cushions inspired by those in the MFA Boston ’s costume archives, while others are encased in transparent “tombs” made of plastic and rubber. The title reflects Baudrillard’s notion that museum preservation, by removing cultural artifacts from their organic context, constitutes a form of unnatural death.

While Schimmel critiques the fashion industry, she remains passionate about its artistry and the significance of personal expression. She emphasizes a key distinction in her work: “What I am critical of is fashion and its extractive methods as an industrial complex, not fashion as a joyful and important daily practice for so many,” she remarked. Furthermore, she believes that “criticism is much more interesting if you actually really like something.”

Artsy Source: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tenant-culture-skewers-fast-fashion-sculpture The Future of Art Collecting.