Susan Cianciolo

[droogist]

If there are still a few Susan Cianciolo fans knocking about here - and I think there are - you might be interested in this group exhibition she's participating in: http://www.hetdomein.nl/tentoonstellingen/pages/tenInternationaleKunst.html (sorry, the text is only in Dutch).
The show is called "Over Liefde" or "On Love" and it's at Museum Het Domein in Sittard, a small city in south Holland. Susan designed the video-viewing station, showed a few frocks, and played at the opening with her "band" MAGIC star...unfortunately I didn't take my camera so I don't have pics, but she and the girls in the band all wore white minidresses she made, high heels, and day-glo bobbed wigs. Here's some pics I made of the installation later:

 

[droogist]

more:

 

[droogist]

last few:

 

[sea of stitches]

oo, lovely, thanks droogist!

 

[jhaime]

It all sounds & looks very interesting...not really my thing I don't think though.

 

[travolta]

thanks for the thread droogist. i think i saw her stuff posted in another thread.

www.pure-plus.net/.../ susan%20cianciolo.html

 

[travolta]

oh wow, i didn't know she went to the rhode island school of design, maybe that's why her name is familiar?


Susan Cianciolo (New York) is widely known as a very determined fashion designer, but what makes her really special is her versatility as an artist, musician and film maker. Her studio is a ‘travel agency’ for her thoughts, it’s jam-packed with unique fabrics, drawings, watercolours, photos, found illustrations, prototypes and books. When working in this intimate domain, Susan is not concerning herself with fashion in itself, but with translating her thoughts, findings and comments into extremely personal works. ‘I leave the result to chance, fate, destiny, my passion and my need to create’.
Her fashion designs are definitely anti-economical and completely manual. Her works communicate a distinct determination never to work within the confines of the fashion world and its production requirements. Her RUN collections are shown during the New York Fashion Week, but also in galleries, in the streets or in a parking garage. Many of her presentations are controversial; performances rather than fashion shows. The models showing her RUN 2 works were smoking during the show, displaying the tattoo of an automatic weapon in their necks. Instead of a fashion show for her RUN 3 collection, she showed a pro-abortion film (Anti Pink) which she had made herself. For the RUN 5 presentation, she had models stretched out on the floor like sleeping persons, while visitors with walkmans were guided through the space.

Her crude, primitive garments with handpainted patterns, rough stitching and freakish embroidery have a significant influence on a new generation of fashion designers. Her works have frequently been copied, also by well-known fashion houses, but in these copies the soul of the originals was always missing. Cianciolo is one of the trendsetters in the field of ‘customizing’, designing and making garments to meet the size and taste of individual customers. Her denim skirts, for instance, had to be cut to the required length by the individual users themselves. Like a true deconstructivist, she takes existing garments apart and reconstructs them in different ways: the sleeves of her knit sweaters, for instance, can be worn as leg warmers. Her DIY philosophy and her attempts to turn every design into a unique creation have caused repeated clashes with the mores of the fashion world. Yet, right at the moment when the world at large is expecting a typical, new Cianciolo collection, she succeeds in surprising the public with subtle and elegant evening dresses.

http://www.mu.nl/exhibitions/52-crystal-cloud/chrystal-cloud-eng.html

 

[cerfas]

Oo, hadn't heard about this yet. Thanks for the photos, droogist!

 

[Spacemiu]

I like her alot, I love that instillation

 

[Spacemiu]

S/S 2001

 

[Spacemiu]

 

[Spacemiu]

Susan Cianciolo
by Mariuccia Casadio



It isn’t fashion, it isn’t art. It’s both. In a recent interview Susan Cianciolo concludes: “For me it has always been like that. And so it will continue”. The most exciting thing about the work of this young New Yorker is precisely the way it is so completely, clearly focused, while at the same time eluding any attempts at categorization. The work may take the form of a dress or a blanket, an idea of cutting, stitching or embroidery. But it truly represents a world apart.

It comes from a circumscribed, personal territory, deeply autobiographical and instinctive. Cianciolo has defined this work as “the art of moving while staying in one place”. A place that like her studio in Chinatown seems to be full of information about her. A sort of “merzbau”. A “travel agency” for her thoughts, filled with “souvenirs”, remnants of cloth cut and sewn, prototypes, hung garments, fabric samples, drawings, prints, watercolors, books, notes on paper, fashion photos, art images, found illustrations. Things we perceive there as “creatures”, characters in a unique world, assembled and organized to her measure through intuition and imagination. “I plan the work in a very abstract way, using my own language. So it appears very clear and precise to me… And I am constantly in motion, I like to experience evolution, the beauty of what changes.” Her dimension is definitely intimate, but not marginal. Anything but! She is very connected. Perfectly in contact. A rapid way of moving, of “racing” across the existing world, then quickly returning home... Susan feeds on continuing relations with other, different worlds and modes of expression. She says: “I have always collaborated with other people, even when I was in school”. Concluding: “But it’s like that for everyone... you can’t go it alone”. It’s true: today, in the big cities, there are many people like Susan Cianciolo who use their creativity as a means of expression. They may live alone, but they activate different forms of communication with the street, they socialize and collaborate with others. They don’t think it is important, or at least not a priority, to offer the rest of the world explanations of the meaning of what they are doing. None of them seems to seek public recognition, professional legitimacy or a socially defined role. There are lots of them and they live immersed in situations that are undoubtedly “artistic”, but each in their own way, on their own terms. They love research, finding or creating precious personal linguistic codes or dimensions. Passions and sensations in their own image. A world of interests and stimuli with which to grow, to interpret through different projects that can then be offered to the attention of selected counterparts. They go out, together, to make or show a work, then each person returns to his or her personal dimension of interests, practices and contemplations, to wait for the next opportunity. The best-known projects already made by Susan Cianciolo are the different collections of her “fashion line” RUN COLLECTION. Eleven in all, for different seasons, created starting in 1993, each time with the help of different specialists and hypotheses of unconventional presentations. Each project gives her a chance to develop different theories and put them into practice. Observing the various results she has achieved over a decade of work, it is hard not to notice that each collection is connected to different moods, expressing them. Trends in progress in “official” fashion and on the street, characteristics of society and art, themes of science and contemporary philosophy are grabbed, translated and summed up in very personal forms of dress. Therefore this is not simply fashion, because the process selected for the creation of the works is absolutely anti-economical, completely manual. Like couture pieces, like artworks, all unique. They communicate a clear determination not to ever fit exactly into the confines of production and the fashion market. Shown in art galleries, or in the street nearby. In some unpredictable private or public space. Always, in any case, conceived to dress the body: her pieces cannot be considered pure artworks, because they have an unmistakable function. Instead, it might be more plausible to see them as the products, the effects of a private “game”. The consequences of a secret pleasure of perpetuation of childhood, private storytelling, fairytales populated by character-mannequin-dresses that try to escape from the logic of what is known, what has been seen before. Neither art nor fashion. But both, together, interacting to obtain a type of communication that goes beyond normal channels. Activating a therapy of the spirit, offering the soul an escape route. “I leave the result up to chance, fate, destiny, my passion and need to create”, she writes me by e-mail. So nothing can be predetermined. In fact, the first RUN Collection narrated a very personal take on “street chic”, with lots of ragged fabrics and fishnet hose. During the show a model also pulled out a knife and pointed it at the audience. RUN Collection 2 (1996) involved the attempt to deconstruct, taking things to extremes, making the cuts developed for the first collection more abstract. Cianciolo sent out a model with the form of a weapon tattooed on her neck and a cigarette in her hand. The third RUN Collection, on the other hand (also in 1996), was the first to focus on her hand-stitching, still a highly characteristic feature of her works. Instead of a fashion show, she presented a “pro-abortion” film. RUN 4 (1997) was the first collection featuring knits. Heavy, crude, rustic, handmade, combined with deconstructed garments in precious, light silk. The fifth RUN Collection (1997) centered on a series of dresses in lace or frail materials, completely in white or pink. The presentation, with five models and five lifesize dolls stretched out on the floor, took place in a small, completely white room. Visitors were asked to listen to music on a walkman and to pass through a group of sleeping persons. The sixth collection (1998) was based on the idea that “every garment can be taken apart and reconstructed in a different form”, including gray suits and knitwear pieces. A film was shown during the show, entitled “Diadal”, with Rita Ackerman. The seventh RUN Collection (1998) was composed of few dresses and a vast series of small accessories, including a box containing a bathing suit. Susan Cianciolo also presented her “RUN 7 Book”. Then came collections 8 (1999), 9 (1999) and 10 (2000) which, in different ways, offered new interpretations of couture cuts, patchwork and embroidery, lady look and lace. With RUN Collection 11 (2002) Cianciolo’s clothes had already, definitively entered a number of boutiques in the world, including the important New York department store Barney’s, and she was looking for new ways to upgrade and accelerate production. Today, for the first time, her work can be gathered together in a retrospective. Something that might seem like a contradiction for someone who calls her creative activites RUN and makes movement her main theme... but it might also provoke original considerations and solutions. “I want to show what I have done in the past in a new way... the original impact of a retrospective comes only from the way you organize the images of the work, I think... a simple, free way, like a big collage, because the best representation of my collections is the idea of an infinite collage, lots of different pieces and moments that generate one another, without a beginning or an end... to design this retrospective I am reading lots of books on life after death and reincarnation. Because this is a task that allows me to see myself again in all my past lives, to understand that I am no longer where I was, but living a new life...” And so Susan Cianciolo keeps running. She runs away. Because it isn’t her job to explain, to observe herself from the outside. She lives inside. In her own world. Made of things in becoming, in constant transformation. Today she has taken them all in hand, eleven collections and other pieces made over the last ten years. Material that once again can be taken apart and put back together to allow her, in her own style, to create a completely new form.



http://www.boilermag.it

 

[Spacemiu]

boilermag.it

 

[travolta]

spacemiu, thanks for the article. i love how she speaks about art as moving.

They love research, finding or creating precious personal linguistic codes or dimensions.

love that , i've recently become really interested in linguistics. if never occurred to me before how much it related to artistic thinking...

 

[Scott]

Thanks Droogist.

Susan Cianciolo is one of my heroes...so definitely still a fan....even if she no longer designs exclusively.

Completely irrelevent to the topic but I thought I'd share: Did you guys know she got attacked in Prospect Park in NY during the Spring 04 shows? She was supposed to be doing a presentation that week and for sure cancelled. It was going to be her first in three or four seasons after calling it good. It was in some paper I read through the net. Really awful. She was in Japan over the holidays doing a exhibition and said after going through that,it was nice being in such a big city as Tokyo being able to walk round and not having to worry with attackers like in NY.

 

[droogist]

You're welcome everyone And thanks travolta and Spacemiu for the pics + articles.

Scott - yes, it's horrific what happened to her, but I'm happy to report that she's recovered and looks great

 

[Estella*]

i love all these ideas! and i have to admit i wasn't familiar with her work ...
so thanks for the thread and exclusive pictures, droogist and for all the additions, spacemiu

 

[softgrey]

thanks everyone...
i respect her work a lot but i can't say it reaches me...


awful to hear what happened to her scott...
glad to hear she's doing well now droogist...
thanks for the personal report...and pictures...

 

[gius]

bump *

i hope this doesn't tarnish her name in any way i thought it would be good to post for her 'archives'

from papermag

Posted Aug. 30, 2006, 4:00 p.m. ET

Susan Cianciolo's back!
by kim harstreiter

Another fun show this fashion week will be by our old friend Susan Ciancolo who produced a line of clothes for Cone Denim. Susan will be showing her new stuff via an exhibition that will be up at the Sears Peyton Gallery (210 11th Ave., Suite 802 ) thru September 20th and then travel to Los Angeles where it will be shown at LACE through November. I've always admired Susan's work and in this show she collaborated with one of our favorite artist/photographers Mark Borthwick so it should be great. I've seen the clothes and they are fab so make sure to check it out.

 

[Scott]

i think i remember getting a newsletter from somebody at her atelier about this.

she also did a customised cover for papermag in 05 for their anniversary. wish i still had that i could scan and post. it was the one they did with features on some of ny's most creative....tess was one.