‘Dress • Redress’ at Brandeis, Fredo Conde at the Artists Foundation, Parade For The Future with Platform2, and June art talks at BU thanks to AIB
By RANDI HOPKINS | June 10, 2008
Andrew Thompson, Clothes Document |
“Dress • Redress” at Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, 515 South St, Waltham | June 19–September 25 | 781.736.8100
“Adrift (Good Hope): Fredo Conde” at Artists Foundation at Distillery, 516 East Second St, South Boston | Through July 12; reception June 14: 3-5 pm | 617.464.3561
“Parade For The Future” at Park Street T Station, Boston [to start] | June 15: 4-5:30 pm
“June 2008 Art Talks” at Boston University, Kenmore Classroom Building, 565 Comm Ave, Room 101, Boston | June 23-26: 7:30-9:30 pm | 617.585.6770 |
The relationship between our bodies and our clothing is, of course, intimate: our gym clothes, our prom dresses, and our favorite jeans press up against us, holding our forms and our scent, protecting our skin and at the same time projecting our identity to the world. Attire can serve as a prompt for memory, a metaphorical stand-in for the body, and a tool for concealing or revealing who we really are — all issues that are explored in “DRESS • REDRESS,” which opens at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis on June 19, with work by eight contemporary artists. Andrew Thompson embroiders items of his own clothing with the date on which they were worn and other salient facts about his experience while in them. Sandra Eula Lee creates mixed-media works including tiny garments, sometimes on tiny hangers, from discarded materials like bills, various other paperwork, and plastic bags.The trappings and accouterments of consumer culture have also figured in work by Fredo Conde. This Portuguese-born, Boston-based artist has created fake high-end watches and sunglasses arrayed as if for sidewalk sale in fake suitcases — whole tableaux put together using low-end materials like cardboard, foam core, tape, paint, and rhinestones. In “ADRIFT (GOOD HOPE): FREDO CONDE,” at the Artists Foundation (opening reception June 14), he turns his attention to the historical roots (and routes) of our acquisitive drive. His new work explores the race for competitive economic advantage waged by Europeans seeking to open a sea route to the riches of India and the East in the 15th century.
Hoping to raise awareness of the watery grave that may be in our future, Platform2, an experimental event series that joins creative practices with social activism, invites the public to dress in blue and gather under a giant blue wave outside the Park Street T Station on June 15 at 4 pm for a “PARADE FOR THE FUTURE” that will proceed along the neighborhood’s flood line, creating a human wave that will trace a worst-case-scenario future geography from the year 2108. Scuba divers, sharks, and seaweed will be provided, along with “music and swimming.”
The Art Institute of Boston sponsors “ART TALKS: JUNE 2008,” four guest-artist lectures taking place at BU on consecutive evenings: WAYNE GONZALES on June 23, DAWOUD BEY on June 24, ELLEN HARVEY on June 25, and MARIAM GHANI on June 26. All talks are scheduled to run from 7:30 to 9:30 pm.
On the Web
Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University: www.brandeis.edu/centers/wsrc
Artists Foundation at Distillery: www.artistsfoundation.org
“Parade For The Future” at Park Street T Station: www.janemarsching.com/platform2/
“June 2008 Art Talks” at Boston University: www.lesley.edu/aib/curriculum/mfa_visitingartists.html
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