Cloaking - the available shell that art provides.

Franz Erhard Walther has been making pants, jackets, and coats since the late seventies for his Werksätze, which he integrates into fabric assemblages in monochrome yellow, red, or blue-colored spaces. Yet when he was asked in an interview in 1994 about his preference for using clothing, he explained in a somewhat worried manner: "The coat might make you think of an article of clothing. Yet this term destroys the concept: instead, it's a cloaking. I am responsible for creating the terms for describing it. 'Article of clothing' keeps it general, takes it out of the art context. But that's the context I want." In contrast to the current trend of thinking of fashion and art together in a triumph of design, Walther, who was born in 1939, insists on the artistic difference that lies in an investigation of the material; he sums this up in the following sentence: "I am the sculpture." The usage of fabric is meant to emphasize these haptic qualities, and not to be read as a symbol for a fashion-conscious wardrobe. At the same time, Walther tries to integrate the viewer actively into his works: the hand-made pants, coats, and jackets testify to the possibility of possessing them as clothing. This is related to the idea that the viewer appropriates the space, at least in an imaginary sense, and thus becomes a part of the setting. This is what Walther means with "cloaking" - in perceiving art, a person develops a life of their own; he becomes a body that fills the hollow form, or, to put it more precisely, the available shell that art provides. - Deutsche Bank Art Magazine