« Nothing Vast Without a Curse », Paris

Fashion is a dream haunted by dresses.
Christian Dior

What could be sexier, more romantic, dreamier than to be possessed, hunted, haunted by fashion’s undying spectre? The child in me would surely give up the ghost, elated at the mere thought of an avalanche of fabric engulfing my limbs. However, here it is worth remembering the age-old adage be careful what you wish for. If this comes across as too didactic, too much of a buzzkill for our thrill-seeking Prozac-happy present, there is always Sophocles. Nothing like a bit of Greek tragedy, the wrath of the gods and histories repeating themselves ad nauseum to burst through the vapid commercial bubble. When in doubt, ask yourself, what would the Greeks do? In Antigone, the greatest tragedian of them all provides a moral lesson on the consequences of sacrificing wisdom at the altar of power. If we are to separate knowledge from power, then indeed nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse. Like a frock without a body, what we are left with is a constellation of flattened images, outer shells that lead nowhere other than to a vast inner emptiness. Is it time to stop being a basic bitch and grow a pair? Paired together, Zuzanna Czebatul and Mel Odom unpack the burgeoning aesthetics of power and the strategies of appropriation that images are subjected to. Faced with the constant collapse of meaning, no wonder we’re all fighting chronic fatigue. The artists’ work may well be tinged with melancholy, or even perversely inclined to tragedy, but it is exactly through their disavowal of empty laughter and posturing that the drawings, sculptures and fashion cohabiting at sans titre open up spaces where desire, longing and a critical acumen can flourish.

Excerpt from the text by Anya Harrison

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Zuzanna Czebatul, born in 1986 in Poland, lives and works in Berlin. A graduate of the Städelschule in Frankfurt, she develops a sculptural and installation-based practice that examines the forms, narratives and architectures of power. Through columns, obelisks, tapestries, archaeological remnants and monumental interventions, she diverts the signs of authority in order to reveal their fragility, ambiguity and transformative potential.
Her work reactivates the codes of commemoration and ornament, moving between solemnity and humour, monumentality and decay, seduction and critique. By replacing notions of permanence with those of ephemerality, instability and fluidity, Czebatul proposes an unsettled reading of the symbols that shape our political and social imaginaries.
Recipient of the Allegro Art Prize in 2022, she also received the Werkstattpreis from the Kunststiftung Erich Hauser the same year. Her solo exhibitions have been presented at Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin; Sans titre, Paris; Kunsthal Thy; Kunstpalais Erlangen; CAC Synagogue de Delme; Futura, Prague; CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; and Ludlow 38, New York. Her work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Somerset House, London; the Baltic Triennial, Vilnius; the Athens Biennale; among others. Her works are held in several public and private collections, including the Federal Art Collection of Contemporary Art Germany, Kunstsammlung Erlangen and Sammlung Philara.

Mel Odom, born in 1950 in Richmond, Virginia, lives and works in New York City. He studied Fashion Illustration at Virginia Commonwealth University before continuing his education at Leeds Polytechnic Institute in England. Moving to New York in 1975, at the height of gay liberation, Odom developed a singular visual language shaped by Broadway theatre, Greek mythology, Hollywood noir, disco culture and eighties music videos.
His drawings are known for their refined, dreamlike atmosphere, combining decadence and tenderness, fetish and innocence, theatricality and emotional sincerity. Early in his career, Odom developed a demanding process in which each image was redrawn and layered multiple times, producing the luminous, delicate quality that became one of his signatures.
Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, his work circulated widely through major publications including Time, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Blue Boy and Playboy, where he was a regular contributor. He also created book covers and illustrations for authors such as Roald Dahl, Joyce Carol Oates, Patrick White and Tom Robbins. His illustrations have received multiple awards from the Society of Illustrators and other graphic arts organizations. His work has been gathered in several publications, including Mel Odom — Gorgeous!, published by Apartmento in 2024; First Eyes, published in Japan in 1982, and Dreamer, published by Viking Penguin in 1984 with a foreword by Edmund White.