A participatory installation by
Stuart Keeler
June 27, 7-10pm & June 28
The invitation encourages the viewer to bring old favorite clothes to be exchanged for other favorite clothes. The entire gallery looks like a store, but the perception changes when the viewer hears cello music performed by artist Katie Waugh who was playing behind transparent white curtains. Also, the floor had white stripes and inside there were five cubicles made by transparent and opaque white cloth.
In the first translucent cubicle was a girl ironing some cloth that people want to exchange. The second and the fourth cubicle were the changing room for woman and men.
The third cubicle has a woman counting numbers. It has different shifts: a woman counting in Chinese and English, and other foreign woman counting in Spanish and English. The last cubicle has a person who gives the Champagne for the viewers. In the middle there was a dressing rack where people can hand and choose clothe.I think that this is the kind of work that gives a lot of connotations and freedom to the viewer to create different connections. Some of the interesting ideas that this work offers are:
1. The silence and hidden background behind all the cloth; The labor of making clothe; The scene when a thousand pieces of cloth that have to be made; We can think of sweatshops, and who are the people that really work in the process for less pay. In addition the cello sounded sad, but it gives a sophisticate sense to the environment, it could give a relation to the style that stores want to show.
2. An environment of art where people participate without worrying if they understand or not. Some people call the gallery boutique.
3. A show where experience and participation is part of the entire art piece…
Pictures by I-Nu Yeh
1 comment:
Interesting.
Katie, you look beautiful with your cello and white dress... and of course, Joha, you, too.
It indeed reminds me so much of my parents' dry cleaners where countless personal garments get: counted, separated, washed, pressed, categorized, and packaged. Stations of how this business of American immigrants (mainly Koreans, Indonesians, Indians, and Mexicans) - dry clears - are incredibly interesting.
Sounds of the dry cleaners, social exchange and cultural hiearchy... all that are amazingly complex.
You feel the thickness of humid steam of the press machine. You hear the sound of mexican radio music blasting out. You hear the ringing of bell as cars stop at the pick up line. You hear my mother yelling out in Korean, Spanish, and a bit of English to hurry up. You hear the chatterings of Mexican employees. Then you suddenly find the owner - my father, dancing with a funny little skirt.
Beautiful, it seems, but the labor is costy.
Well, there is an inspiration for my next project!!!
Love you, my art friends in Atlanta.
I am going to be home soon...
Gyun
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