Foldings

 220 South Wabash, Chicago

Soft forms in hard places, cloth as kinetic surface, and the body as architectural facade are recurring themes in my work with interdisciplinary artist and performer Erica Mott.  This image from May 2010 is our first public study for Winged Victory of Samothrace.  Performing in an empty Wabash storefront for Chicago's Pop Up Art Loop, I draped Erica in real time before a small audience as we discussed notions of victory and depictions of the female form in relation to war.  Erica became a live replication of the iconic Greek statue, modeled as if taken from the prow of a ship. 

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I continue my collaboration with Erica Mott this Summer as costume designer on her performance The Victory Project.  Developing costumes in close relation to her choreographic process, I'm attending rehearsals at St Luke's Church in Chicago to observe the energetic techniques, physical structures, and improvised sketches composed with the five dancers who make up her cast.  There's continual discussion in the studio on bodily containment and expansion, energetic and physical arrivals, and finding the voice at landing.

The Victory Project premieres July, August, and September of 2011 in Chicago.

  

"a pose where violent motion and sudden stillness meet" 

 Our second public study for Winged Victory.

July 2010, Dearborn Street, Chicago

all photos by Day Still

(S)watch Sets

 

Dotted (S)watch Set

cotton fabric and thread

5 x 7 " each

This is a series of works in cloth created by the removal of threads from the length and cross of woven fabric.  Similar to cut-work embroidery, the gesture is one of removal but the action is additive, pulling threads from the surface of the cloth, folding the filaments to the back of the surface.  The threads remain connected to the framework of the fabric, but the parallel lines of the woven surface are loosened, providing a window into the underlying structure of the cloth. 

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"

Standing In

"I Stand Corrected" is a video by my studio mate Jereon Nelemans.  He asked me to stand in for this recording as a viewer placed off to the side. We're both interested in playing with formal design to create open grids, looking at the work of Mondrian, and studying the Fibonacci Series.

Spoke, Chicago

December 2010

I Stand Corrected from Jeroen Nelemans on Vimeo.

Light Train

Light Train

Spoke, Chicago

December 2010

These are a series of ten woven drawings created with a photo luminescent thread. The ten surfaces, created in sequence, are a metaphor for achieving fullness; the first weaving is empty while the tenth weaving is full. The linear material , a glow in the dark filament, supports a passive metabolic process like Fuller, absorbing light from the surrounding environment, emitting light in the surrounding darkness.
See More Photos Here

washed muslin

glow-in-the-dark thread

straight pins

5" x 7" each

RedShift at Body Implement

photos by James Prinz

I created RedShift Party Hats in leather and feather for "Body Implement" at Nick Cave's Sound Suit Shop in Chicago's South Loop, November 2010. There's a narrative behind these hats which begins 13 years ago with a magazine tear sheet and the performance "Mercuria" by Lynn Book and Theo Bleckmann at "Here" in New York. I designed the costumes for these two vocalists who embodied more content than I've ever cloaked. Please see the clip...

This is a story about the infinite in the everyday, when invention interrupts intention with fluid generosity.

Fuller

Ready-made glow in the dark Oxford cloth, thread, pencil pleating, drapery hooks, aluminum rods, plastic sliders. Dimensions variable (appx 8' x 14')


Sustenance: 337 Singleton, Dallas TX , September 2009

An exhibit of site specific installations.

Organized by Stephen Lapthisophon and Anne Lawrence

For this exhibit I made a curtain of glow-in-the-dark fabric on a north facing wall of the Sustenance exhibit site. The primary source of light to this space was an entry door to the west. The random opening of the entry door charged the material over unmeasured intervals of time. The curtain, just by hanging there, supported a metabolic process, absorbing and emitting light, consuming and expelling light. The gathering of the curtain was a drawing process to create a fluctuating fullness containing pockets of space and darkness in each fold.


Here are some images from my research trip to Berlin: photos

Loie Fuller's Radium Dance

Link to Sustenance exhibit

Art Lies Review

In Ridicule Of Spectacle

Experimental Sound Studio: Project Space, February 2009
 
This was a performance, drawing session, and photo shoot to bridge the disciplines of art and dressmaking through the act of modeling.  To develop this piece, I investigated the idea of being tarred and feathered, the alchemical symbol of the blackened mirror, and butoh performance images.  The  visual narrative took on a textural layer with writer Sara Levine's prose poem "In Which the Seamstress Speaks."  I am continually interested in how personal identity can be shaped through material interactions, and enjoy rearranging fairy tale outcomes to escape set orders.


The result of this project is a series of hand made look books for RedShift, one of which is in The Joan Flasch Artist's Book Collection.

There's a fine line between self-reflection and self-voyeurism.  

Look beyond the red dotted swatch for details...

See more photos here

A poem by Paul Shullenberger in response to "In Ridicule Of Spectacle"

party hat central calling
elusive tassels’ nonesuch
numinous graffiti hotline:
does a stitch in time throw
clocks out of whack?

wear your words lightly
if they float you’re there
grains of sand are feathers
through foo stints as hair

stutter-dance with doodles
peripherally lensed
landscape’s scalp massage it
grab knead twang the air
--for kristin mariani



Many thanks to Carol McCurdy, Ella Stauber, David Ettinger, Sara Levine, Adam Vida, and Alex Inglizian

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.

A Sample Of Making

Spoke, Chicago November 2 - 21 2009

A Sample of Making was a RedShift design project to provide a platform for the intensive labor involved in making clothing. For a period of three weeks I produced singular garments within the Spoke gallery space from my collection of salvaged wools in a spectrum of colors. Seeking to present my process of design alongside the product of my practice, I aimed to create opportunities for critical exchange by engaging others in the design process. Working with several interns, I held open studio hours, a workshop, and hosted a closing event to view the work created at Spoke.


New City Review

Rachel Moore's Art 21 Interview

See more photos here


With Special thanks to the following interns for their time and handiwork:
Sarah Amariat
Kelsey Heiniger
Rosemary Lee
Coral Manor
Danielle Wyman