Fountain Gallery, downtown Lafayette
I was fortunate, to be able to attend the artist talk about this installation. It was really refreshing to hear the artist speak about her work. She earned her MFA in textiles from Indiana University in Bloomington. This installation was created in direct correlation to an installation/ performance piece she created about hand labor versus inventory and retail. During this prior performance, she was hand making t-shirts on one level of a museum and on the other she was selling them to the public, counting inventory, and demanding more product. She was able to create 171 t-shirts for roughly 900 dollars during this performance installation. She took the same amount of money it cost her to create those t-shirts and for this installation sourced out and bought them from overseas. She was able to buy substantially more shirts and it shows in this beautiful, clean, simple installation. The lighting and space at the fountain gallery really showcase this installation in a beautiful way. I was unaware that the fabric in the publicity image for this show was t-shirt. She, at the opening, explained that the t-shirt is something she holds with great importance as the subject matter of this project. It is the one material of clothing that is often under appreciated, consider to be of no value, and at the same time, the closest to the body/ skin of the person, often worn as an undershirt. She can see no other material greater than this to create an installation about consumerism vs. hand made craft.
No comments:
Post a Comment