In Some Form or Fashion

In Some Form or Fashion, a new visual arts exhibition organized by the Momentary, which explores the cultural implications of fashion and how identities are shaped by the garments individuals purchase, wear and dispose of. The exhibition will bring together the work of six artists: Pia Camil, Martine Gutierrez, Eric N. Mack, Troy Montes-Michie, Simphiwe Ndzube, and Wendy Red Star. In Some Form or Fashion is free, opening on November 20, 2021 and will be on view through March 27, 2022.

The exhibition features site-responsive, large-scale installations by the six artists, each using clothing to map real and imagined cultural histories of fashion:

· Pia Camil, whose immersive curtains chart the cycles of global consumerism by incorporating secondhand t-shirts that were manufactured in Latin America, discarded in the US, and later, re-sold in open-air markets in Mexico and Latin America;

· Martine Gutierrez, whose work subverts imagery from fashion, film, and advertising, referencing the consumer industries’ visual languages, interrogating pop culture’s definitions of identity and its social construction;

· Eric N. Mack, whose immersive installations comprised of found clothing and textiles challenge how to perceive value and identity in materials based on setting or context;

· Troy Montes-Michie, who draws inspiration from men’s fashion, namely the zoot suit, revealing the ways self-fashioning can both advertise and disguise aspects of race, class, and gender;

· Simphiwe Ndzube, whose magical realist paintings, drawings, and sculptures form dynamic cosmologies that offer new possibilities for being and becoming in post-apartheid South Africa; and

· Wendy Red Star, whose multidisciplinary practice sources inspiration from personal memory, Indigenous ideologies, and historical archives to re-examine colonial structures.

Embracing the unique architecture of the Momentary, the artists’ installations will be on view throughout the building, creating a diverse and engaging exploration of the intersection of art and fashion while examining the role of consumer culture in our society. “In Some Form or Fashion explores the many ways clothing can assert our own individuality – an exploration that runs parallel to what the Momentary has been undertaking since we opened. By inviting these six artists to respond to our architecture, we’re expanding the possibilities of how to embrace our building and its embedded history as a site of mass production and labor,” said Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, curator of In Some Form or Fashion and associate curator at the Momentary.

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