Frock Talk at ESS

photo credit: David Ettinger

A RedShift Production at Experimental Sound Studio for In/Ex/Change
Friday July 22nd, 9am-5pm

ArtStays 9 International Festival of Contemporary Art
Ptuy, Slovenia

In/Ex/Change is an exhibit structured on a respondent network of participation that opens up new pathways for interaction between art organizer, maker, and viewer.  Using fabric as a connective device and social metaphor for this exhibit,  I'm looking at the edges of internal cuts in cloth, areas intentionally perforated, and ruptures that occur as a function of wear and use, as opportunities to create connections socially and materially.   I've made a series of samples and drawings for the exhibit site in Ptuy, Slovenia (a former prison),  inventing a correspondent event here in Chicago called Frock Talk to animate some of the ideas embedded in the art work.

Locating my design practice at Experimental Sound Studio for Frock Talk, I'm offering my alteration and mending services throughout the day to visitors and participants, inviting artists from all disciplines to come and contribute to what I see as a chorus of activities and surfaces. This is a bring your own content event drawing from ruptures, connections, and binding processes where all forms of media and expression are welcome.

The day will unfold as follows...

We'll have a live stream costume alteration with Damjana Mlinaric from Muzikafe in Ptuy, Slovenia for Hole, Lynn Book and Katharina Klement's opera without opera.

Sound artist Alex Inglizain will create an audio response to the production activity by recording the amplified physical movement of hands, needles, scissors, and threads; processing repetitive sounds by use of audio feedback to represent the invariant outcomes of repetitive labor .  The resulting sound scape with video footage and photo documentation from the event will be transmitted to the exhibit site in Ptuy, Slovenia.

Artist Mark Augustine will create urban weaves from three Google site studies.

12:30  ... We'll have a potluck lunch in the garden.

I'll have a make your own party hat table.

Performer Dan Mohr will wrap up the day leading us in Georgian labor songs.

RedShift mending and alteration services will be offered throughout the day.
All proceeds to benefit ESS

Mondrian Dress-YSL/SL

                                       

I created this dress for Stephen Lapthisophon's exhibit "Spelling Lessons" at Conduit Gallery.  It is a play on YSL's day dress from 1965 and a study of Mondrian's grid paintings from 1921.  In these early grid paintings Mondrian left many of the black lines open from the edge of the canvas.  In my version I left the sides of the dress unfinished and open, but connected by an area of the black grid. 

Art Forum review

Front Row Magazine Review

See more photos here: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=07-1lI8dlgU

RedShift Mondrian Dress

acrylic on canvas, with black duck tape and found cotton twill ribbon

37" x 22"

The Palimpsest Project

Spoke, Chicago April 26 - May 23 2010

This was a collaboration with re[public] in/decency to create an environmental and performative chalkcloth "palimpsest" to trace the intricate relationships between the physical body, transgenerational memory and landscapes of belonging. The chalkboard and chalk cloth are metaphoric contemporary incarnations of the historical palimpsest, a manuscript on parchment which has been effaced to make room for later writing, but of which antecedent traces remain. By enlarging and collectively engaging in the rite of inscribing and re-inscribing personal narratives, unique and powerful (individual and collective) connections are made, engaging in an accessibly expressive and socio-cultural dialogue.

See More Photos Here

Images from Memory Excavation, Pop Up Art Loop, Chicago May 6, 2010
Photos by Day Still

Chalk - video by Jeroen Nelemans from Kristin Mariani Frieman on Vimeo.

Hats

This was a RedShift design project with an environmental group called "Roots and Shoots" at Dewey Elementary School in Evanston.  Working with over 20 students from the third, fourth, and fifth grades, and a handful of parent volunteers, we trained students to sew by hand and machine to create hats out of recycled sweaters for the Evanston School Children's Clothing Association (ESCCA). 

Each hat was a unique creation, bearing the mark of each student's handiwork.  My intern Coral Manor made a visual quilt out of the photos:

  

With special thanks to the Dewey School Roots and Shoots students,  4th grade teachers Pat Cleveland and Steven Files, and Rebecca Harrell for assisting with the project.

Constructivist Dress

Museum of Contemporary Art  Chicago, July 2005

Reconstruction of a 1922 Liubov Popova dress for Stephen Lapthisophon’s installation My Heritage, My Tradition, My Voice.

See More Photos Here

Photos by James Prinz

Lynn Book's Gorgeous Fever

I have worked with Lynn Book on a number of projects and performances as set and costume designer.  Gorgeous Fever at The Kitchen was a life shifting embodied experience.

Here's a sneak peak back in time: