Denim’s Social Construction: William Toney at Kiosk Gallery
Denim is a baseline of modern history. As much a part of the Western canon as television or
sugar, it is the underlying current through which trend, comfort, work, protest, and desire
runs. A clothing option that is strangely idiosyncratic as it transcends racial and class lines,
its branding pivots between affordability and aspiration. A microcosm of the history of denim
as an anti-consumerist activator is on view in William Toney’s Social Fabric at Kiosk Gallery.
In a collection of photography, installation, and hats layered in shredded money and “blunt
guts.”
Jean Wall (2019) Image courtesy Kiosk Gallery
Like displays in Gap stores around the globe, the prints and his denim installation, Jean Wall
(2019, denim, t-shirt, sneakers), has a whiff of commercialism in its almost finicky neatness,
as something that trends towards transactional. The very first encounter presented is the
backside of a shirtless young man in saggy jeans that appears as an advertisement for cool
(Sagging (Akademiks), inkjet print, 2017). Nevertheless, in this gallery environment, viewers
have double-duty in discerning what lies beneath the ordinariness of display — the idea of
being a revolutionary means wearing the guise of the working class.
The protest starts in the grape field, on the back of the bus, in front of the bodega. What is
most attractive about Toney’s selection jeans is their back pocket stitching. Not immediately
recognizable as Levi’s or Wranglers, but a more involved role in denim’s history, where the
wearer and its purpose unite as task and performance. Even though Toney is using his jeans
collected and stored over the years (some still with the original tags attached), its reflection
on himself is a mirror to the culture in which he exists. He is managing its implication in a
broader social sense of his personalized branding. Those older than thirty can see this as a
chapter in a history book: How We Dressed for the Branded Revolution: Aughts Edition.
Toney avoids condemnation of any visual language. Personal interpretation is the point. That
is what is enjoyable about this; the lack of knee-jerk reaction; Toney leaves abundant space
to argue the points he presents. Furthermore, there is no penalty – or being canceled – in
less formal parlance, for doing so. It runs alongside the concept of denim as a larger cultural
image. Its cut, form and fit are now an almost universal language for signaling status or
presenting an ideology.
Recently, there is a conversation concerning the de-gendering of fashion from writer,
performer and speaker Alok Vlad-Menon. Their Instagram posts are posed in feminine
clothing, makeup and accessories while clearly not willing to compromise their hirsute
maleness. While Alok’s work strongly and successfully advocates for trans awareness, their
theorizing is sometimes overly written as to be critique-proof. Nonetheless, there is
something to be found within their images that runs alongside the revolutionary spirit denim
arouses. It might be difficult to find Alok wearing denim, the idea of existing in the abstract
(without the demand for complete cooperation) highlights the urgent need for dialogue and
disagreement, as is the temperment seen in Toney’s work.
Sagging (Akademiks), 2017
Image courtesy Will Toney
Pants 2, 2019
59/’50 (covered in tobac co), 2019
Image courtesy Kiosk Galler
In full, Toney’s tableaux on the wall, along with its accompanying prints and customized hats,
Toney shows the off-brand as the right culture warrior. The body itself is the ultimate
rebellion; how its used, abused, and ultimately changed in the way we dance, dress, protest,
and fuck. The clothing stakes no high moral rhapsodizing like Vlad-Menon’s quest for degendering
fashion, when, in fact, what Toney shows us is exposure being a form of window
dressing.
Supporting this is the abstracted way in which Toney presents these pieces of denim (Pants
2, Pants 3, inkjet print, 2019) are displayed. He provides the viewer with an open
interpretation of how denim is both a clothing choice and a tool when there is work to be
done. Looking up close at these images, we see the construction and how delicate its
intricacy appears. This durability discloses a metaphor for a well-worn, and worn-out,
working-class making their existence desirable to many. Conversely, the lived-in aspect of
many denim items is also seen as a symbol of leisure. Clothing sold right off the rack, looking
as though it has been through fifty winters and fifty summers without the sweat that produces
such a look is a privilege ne plus ultra.
Within Kiosk Gallery’s limited space, Toney chooses a formal presentation that supports the
casual nature of this fabric. He also presents a trio of baseball caps (59/50 {covered in
money, New Era baseball cap, shredded money and 59/50 {covered in tobacco), New Era
baseball cap, tobacco, both 2019) fully covered in shredded money and “blunt guts,” i.e., the
insides of Phillies brand cigars, a commonly recognized delivery device for smoking weed.
These items, getting high and money, maintain the casualness of social algorithms that are
as much of Western culture’s social fabric as denim itself — many flights of protest and
social agitation borne of these items.
Denim can quell up a revolutionary response or celebrate the self. Levi Strauss, the original
manufacturer of denim, was a master of dichotomies. The overall takeaway from this work is
most of us make choices where our response is based upon where we stand on the
consumption hierarchy.
Toney’s choices recognize their symbolism while giving enough room to allow for myriad
interpretations that threads between a revolutionary response and an aesthetical choice.
This small, tightly cultivated exhibition is a good reminder that works with a biographical
intent makes a broad historical lens possible without dwelling too much on ego-intensive
posturing.
Pants 2, (2019)
Image courtesy Will Toney
59/50 (covered in money), 2019
Image courtesy Kiosk Gallery
Will Toney
Social Fab ric
November 15 , 23019 – January 9, 2020
Kiosk Gallery
1600 Gennessee Street, Kansas City, MO