Bernadette Corporation


Bernadette Corporation is a New York City and - based art and fashion collective founded in 1994. Core members include Bernadette van Huy, John Kelsey, and Antek Walzcak. Bernadette Corporation is known for its performance, fashion, and art which in varying ways emulates and disturbs corporations. Influences from fashion to film include Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, and Jean-Luc Godard. The group is often described in terms of the Situationist movement.

History

When Bernadette Corporation first formed, they were hired to organize parties at downtown nightclubs. They quickly began making fashion and took part in the world of 1990s underground fashion. In the 1990s, their clothes were published in Harper's Bazaar, Purple, Visionaire, Index Magazine, and Artforum. They take influences from the "three Bs"; Barthes, Bataille and Baudrillard.
In the late 1990s, Bernadette Corporation became more productive as a publishing, film, and video group, briefly publishing the magazine Made in USA, named after the Jean-Luc Godard film of the same name.
In 2001 Bernadette Corporation temporarily merged with Le Parti Imaginaire to make the film Get Rid of Yourself, which retains both fiction and documentary elements. The Bernadette Corporation's other films include; The B.C. Corporate Story, Hell Frozen Over, and Get Rid of Yourself.

Bernadette Van Huy

Bernadette van Huy is a New York-based artist and one of the founding members of Bernadette Corporation. She moved to Manhattan at the age of 23 at which point she began to organise parties in New York nightclubs. She is one of the two currently active members of the collective along with John Kelsey. In 1997 she worked as the costume designer for the Harmony Korine film Gummo.

Publications

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