The Momentary announces 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.

 

Find the most up-to-date information about the Momentary’s COVID-19 visitation policies here.

 

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.

 

About the Artists

 

PIA CAMIL (b. 1980, Mexico City, Mexico) draws inspiration from the urban landscapes of Latin America, engaging with the history of modernism to create paintings, sculptures, performances, and installations. Often using laborious fabrication processes in collaboration with local manufacturers, the artist decelerates the frenetic pace of mass commodification with handcrafted production, as evinced in the intimate quality of her works.

 

MARTINE GUTIERREZ (b. 1989 Berkeley, California) is an artist, performer, writer, and musician who constructs elaborate narrative scenes to subvert pop cultural tropes in the exploration of identity―both personal and collective―intersectional to race, gender, class, indigeneity, and culture. Her work can be found in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art collection, among many others.

 

ERIC N. MACK (b.1987, Columbia, Maryland) refers to himself as a painter, yet his works rarely observe the medium’s traditional canvas-to-stretcher format. Rather, his tactile assemblages ― created from a dynamic combination of used textiles, worn clothes, moving blankets, and torn rags, alongside photographs and pull outs from books and magazines ― extend and transform the notion of painting.

 

TROY MONTES-MICHIE (b. 1985, El Paso, Texas) is an interdisciplinary painter and collage artist. His work engages Black consciousness, Latinx experience, immigration and queerness through assemblage and juxtaposition. Utilizing textile, garment, and archival paper, from newsprint to pornography, Michie subverts dominant narratives by placing past and present in confrontation. The resulting work is a non-linear extolification of political resistance and transgressive self-expression and gesture.

 

SIMPHIWE NDZUBE (b. 1990, Cape Town, South Africa) lives and works in Los Angeles and Cape Town, South Africa. His work is characterized by a fundamental interplay between objects, media, and two-dimensional surfaces.

 

WENDY RED STAR (b.1981, Billings, Montana) was raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana. Red Star’s work is informed both by her cultural heritage and her engagement with many forms of creative expression, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance. An avid researcher of archives and historical narratives, Red Star seeks to incorporate and recast her research, offering new and unexpected perspectives in work that is at once inquisitive, witty and unsettling.

 

For a complete list of Visual Arts exhibitions and projects, visit here. For news updates, follow the Momentary on the Blog, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

In Some Form or Fashion is sponsored by Cox Communications, The Coca-Cola Company, Anna and Carl George, and Eric and Elda Scott.

 

About the Momentary

Opened in February of 2020, the Momentary is a contemporary art space in downtown Bentonville, Arkansas, for visual, performing, and culinary arts. The mission of the Momentary is to champion contemporary art’s role in everyday life and explore the unfolding story of contemporary American arts in an international context by actively commissioning and exhibiting outstanding works that explore new ideas and inspire action. The Momentary was founded by the Walton family, based on the vision of Tom, Olivia, and Steuart Walton. The Walton Family Foundation is supporting this project as a way to enhance the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas. The Momentary is a satellite to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton. The Momentary welcomes all with free general admission. Additional offerings include an artist-in-residence program, culinary experiences including an Onyx Coffee Lab, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, an outdoor festival space, and a gift store. For more information, visit theMomentary.org. The Momentary is located at 507 SE E Street, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712. The Momentary’s Founding Funders are Walton Family Foundation, Walmart, RØDE Microphones, The Coca-Cola Company, Tyson Family Foundation, and Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation.