Fwd: Wear Me Out opening Nov. 5th

Begin forwarded message:
>
> SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5
> WEAR ME OUT: Queering Fashion, Art and Design - an exhibit honoring
> what we've fought to wear
> Opening reception 7pm
>
> November 5, 2005 to January 29, 2006
> at the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives
> 909 West Adams Blvd. at the corner of Scarff between Hoover and
> Figueroa
> www.oneinstitute.org
> 213-741-0094
>
> with DJ Emancipation and members of the Black Artists Collective
>
> "WEAR ME OUT: Honoring what we've fought to wear" puts textiles and
> clothing at the forefront of an exhibit on the subject of "reading
> fashion." Bringing together 30 queer visual artists and fashion
> designers, curator Tania Hammidi aims to "take the shame out of
> fashion and situate how aesthetics, gay/lesbian/trans memory, and
> utility have historically converged on our bodies."
>
> "The ONE Archives is proud to premiere Wear Me Out, an amazing
> exhibit honoring our rich queer fashion history," said ONE National
> Gay & Lesbian Archives board member Rita Gonzales. "Tania has
> brought together an eclectic mix of visual artists and fashion
> designers to showcase our history and deep cultural expressionism."
>
> The show busts seams in its exploration of aesthetics, narrative, and
> cultural memory wedded to olfactory perception and tactile exchange.
> Emily Roysdon explores gesture in her "Gay Power" jumpsuit
> installation while Heather Cox brings out gestural and patterned
> repetition in "Shirt Quilt." Privacy and monumentality meet in a
> dynamic series of bronze panties, "Porn Stars and Academics," by
> Elizabeth Stephens. And while "Visible Difference" by Lenore Chinn
> appears aesthetically balanced, its message is much bolder. New work
> from Emile Devereaux, "Wormhole #3," provides a sonic interactive
> piece on recognition while Mitzy Velez explores the artist's own
> emergence as a lipstick-donning gay woman confronting normative
> standards of beauty.
>
> Worn by Le Tigre's JD Samson is "Totally Soft" a t-shirt articulating
> a vocabulary of sentiment, bravery, and comfort through physical wear
> and tear. Chitra Ganesh dons resistance through Hindu mythology and
> constructed Indo-Persian armor in "The Awakening." The cover painting
> "Last Time I Wore A Dress" by author Dylan Scholinski suggests that
> scale communicates his own experiences of psychiatric incarceration
> and regulated dress, while drag couture of performance artist Shelly
> Mars evidences the 1990's historical shift in queer/lesbian focus on
> female masculinity and lesbian rites of passage. Queer fashion
> photography from K8 Hardy and Cass Bird and Sarah Baley are far ahead
> of the fashion industry; "Blue Things I Wear" by Jessica Lawless
> honors genderqueer sensibility while confronting heteronormative
> gallery phobias.
>
> Designers Parisa Parnian (Rigged OUT/Fitters, NYC), Hushi and Micheal
> (LA), Bre Cole + Aisha Pew (Chocolate Baby Designs, Oakland) and
> Gayngsta (LA) approach design, the body, and queer cultural memory in
> wildly divergent manners. Designer Parisa Parinan's "queering" of
> vintage menswear addresses desire and the problems of a global fashion
> labor force head on, while Micheal and Hushi bring Iranian identity
> and gay sexual desire together on one muscle T.
>
> 19th century African-American "Quilts of Suits", the lost shoe of
> Mayor Frank Jordan (on loan from SF Gay Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender
> Historical Society), and G.B. Jones' "Bitch Nation" T round out the
> archival corners of the exhibit.
>
> Whether celebrating the everyday or unfolding the repressed, these
> bold artists enact the subversive practices of reading fashion - and
> show us that we speak and remember through clothing.