Conceptual Art at the CDG Warehouse Sale

by Amy Fusselman

The Comme des Garçons warehouse sale is the kind of New York-y event you either understand or you don’t. You either understand why you would happily wait in line for 45 minutes to strip down to your underwear next to a total stranger to try on a deeply discounted plaid shirt that has built-in fabric tumors that obscure your boobs, or you don’t. For those of us who know and love Rei Kawakubo’s designs, it all makes sense.

Yet even those who know and love may have a moment of uncertainty. When I entered the building where the CDG warehouse sale was held this weekend — it ends today — I found myself in a freshly-painted white space adorned with computer-printed signs that read “No Restrooms Available.” As punctuation to this — or was it in juxtaposition? — a giant, handicapped-sized, porta-potty was cordoned off at one end of the room. It sat there, with absolute material authority, a Donald Judd cube. A sign on the door of of it read: “No Entry.”

What was this? Was it a restroom or not? Was it some sort of a prioi restroom, asserting its presence amid the many signs of its non-existence? I understood tension in art, I thought. But was this tension? Or merely torture for all us coffee-drinking, line-standing fashion-lovers?? And what is it about fashion and torture, anyway?

I waited there 20 more minutes. No one used the potty. At last I was let into the sale.

I love CDG! I love the skirts with shredded hemlines! I love the one shirt that’s two shirts stuck together! I love the pants with strange appendages! I love it, I love it all!

I can’t afford it all. I left with my treasures: a pink, floral, chiffon-ish jacket with many rips and no front closure; a lime green, completely sheer button-up shirt possibly made from paper; and the previously mentioned tumor shirt.

As I was about to exit the building, I said to a staff member, “This sale makes me love New York.” Then I stopped and asked him if the potty was functional or conceptual.

He smiled and bowed slightly. “Conceptual,” he said.

Amy Fusselman is the author of “The Pharmacist’s Mate” and “8.” She is the editor of the online journal Ohio Edit, and she also writes a column, “Family Practice,” for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Her forthcoming book, “Savage Park,” will be out in 2014.