wheeee ive been on trains all weekend and managed to finish this pithy press release on a cool piece by E.V. Day that looks like this:
E.V. DAY
BRIDE FIGHT
MAY 6th AUGUST 26th, 2006
OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, MAY 6th, 7-9PM
LEVER HOUSE
400 PARK AVENUE BETWEEN 53RD and 54TH STREETS
Deitch Projects is pleased to announce E.V. Days exhibition of Bride Fight at Lever House. Filling the street-level gallery space will be her newest piece, a spectacular high-tension string up of two bridal gowns.
Using heavy-duty fishing line and hardware, E.V. eviscerates the two white gowns along with their accompanying tulle veils, long lace gloves, garters, shoes and even hair. One half-rent glove grasps a fistful of blonde braid, another simultaneously bursts a string of pearls around the others neck. Frozen in the extreme of distention, the materials are captured in a thicket of hundreds of monofilaments at their moment of obliteration.
Taking as her subject an eruption in the traditional social fabric– the idea of two glowing brides locked in mortal combatE.V. touches something dark in the American social unconscious. As opined on a web site announcing a new reality show on dueling brides-to-be, one blogger offers that the reality is that with all the planning and frustration, by the time the big day comes ’round, Bridezilla is ready to kill and I am ready to watch.
Days piece may trigger such fetishistic responses but it is a work primarily characterized by the humor and anxiety that accompanies a transformation of tradition. Fierce but nonetheless liberating, Bride Fight feels more like the jouissance of exploded boundaries than the pathology of confined ones.
In the dramatically extrusive trains and the majestic billowing of tulle, the implied brides in this piece take on a bit of a sci-fi or anime feel, where starchy capes fold crisply in stark chiaroscuro and pointy hair doesnt blow in the wind. The dissection into intersecting planes of material also lends a 3D CAD rendered feel to the piece, making this very traditional subject feel somehow uniquely contemporary.
Bride Fight developed from a series of installations called Exploding Couture, begun in 1999, in which Day suspended womens dresses in space. For example, in Bombshell (1999), Day took a piece of iconic attire (Marilyn Monroes white halter dress) and arranged it to feel as if the forces of the implied figure are so powerful that the garment literally blows off, as if outgrowing its stereotype.
Day exhibited G-Force at the Whitney Museum at Altria in 2001, where she suspended hundreds of thongs from the ceiling in fighter jet formations. She recently exhibited at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University for which a color catalogue was produced
