Fawn Krieger, OUTFIT
February 21–April 3, 2016
Opening Sunday February 21, 6:00–8:00 PM
On February 21, Soloway becomes an exhibition-as-boutique, showcasing OUTFIT: a new line of experimental work-wear created by sculptor Fawn Krieger. These OUTFITs are displayed on three-dimensional paintings, inspired by antique lithographed hangers. Krieger's versions are hand-painted portraits of her friends, which—while functioning individually as garment displays—collectively form a kind of community, audience, witness, and… outfit.
“I am drawn to moments in which audience members inadvertently become performers. Not in an undermining, alienating, or antagonistic way—rather, in an inclusive, ecstatic way, where hierarchical terms dissolve or diminish through a primary shift of desire, proximity, and touch. In this way, my work walks an edge between sculpture and theatre, and I think a lot about things like becoming, agency, and exchange. For a number of years I've been constructing immersive spaces, and I'm interested lately in letting those constructed spaces be more metaphorical and nomadic—something like a carrying-with. I'm thinking of the garments I'm designing, sewing, and presenting at Soloway as embodying a way of being, somewhere between theatre and sculpture: a kind of wearable stage… or a nomadic, fragmented, embodied tapestry.”
How do we live in our things in ways that support our labor and movement?
This exhibition launches the first edition of OUTFIT, which consists of a black cotton dress/tunic and a black cotton jumpsuit. Accompanying the show is a free, home-made exhibition catalogue, with an essay by Emily Weiner, interview by Anna Gurton-Wachter, and op-ed by Devin Harclerode. At the end of the exhibition Krieger will introduce an OUTFIT mail-order catalogue, printed in collaboration with The School of Visual Arts' RisoLab.
This is Krieger’s second solo exhibition at Soloway. A preview of the exhibition is published in the article “On Our Radar” in Modern Painters' February 2016 issue.