The Fabric of Felicity, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow

September 12, 2018–January 27, 2019

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art presents The Fabric of Felicity, an international project showcasing clothes in art outside the context of the fashion industry. The exhibition spans five continents and features over forty artists, including representatives of historical avant-gardes, members of the Soviet and Brazilian underground art scenes, and new generation artists from Russia, Japan, USA, Zimbabwe, and other countries.

About Marie-Louise Ekman's work in the catalogue:

Images on garments usually reflect features that we want to help us stand out from the crowd, even if not for long: our sense of humor, our political views, our love for a particular mass culture phenomenon. In her limited series of shirts designed specifically for The Fabric of Felicity, the Swedish artist Marie-Louise Ekman went further and drew an encyclopedia on a garment. The intended wearer identifies themselves with the world and humanity rather than with particular objects or images. This approach is characteristic for Ekman, who rethinks sexual and social roles using the language of comics. Danish researcher Lars Bang Larsen places Marie-Louise Ekman alongside contemporaries who “made the sign ‘woman’ a seemingly endless concept.” Since the late 1960s, Ekman has been involved in the struggle for women’s rights on a variety of fronts, from fine art and theater to newspaper op-eds on socially important topics. In 1984, she became the first female professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Ekman’s work affirms not so much the concept of universal equality as the inalienable right of all people to look ridiculous and to use an important tool for regulating mental health: self-deprecation.

Participating artists:

Narda Alvarado (Bolivia), Taslima Akhter (Bangladesh), Kader Attia (France), Firelei Baez (Dominican Republic/USA), Zarina Bhimji (Uganda/Great Britain), Anastasia Bogomolova (Russia), Huguette Caland (Lebanon/USA), Olga Chernysheva (Russia), Alice Creischer & Andreas Siekmann (Germany), Jimmy De Sana (USA), Sonia Delaunay (France), Hans Ejkelboom (Netherlands), Marie Louise Ekman (Sweden), Hamid El-Kanbouhi (Morocco/Netherlands), Carlos Noronha Feio (Portugal), Alexandra Galkina (Russia), Rimma and Valeriy Gerlovin (Russia/USA), Goldin + Senneby (Sweden), Candida Höfer (Germany), Zhanna Kadyrova (Ukraine), Hayv Kahraman (Iraq/USA), Farrah Karapetian (USA), Shifra Kazhdan & Ksenia Peretrukhina (Russia), Ali Kazma (Turkey), Sharon Kivland (Great Britain), Katalin Ladik (Serbia/Hungary), Lydia Masterkova (Russia), Moataz Nasr (Egypt), Yoko Ono (Japan/USA), Lygia Pape (Brazil), Liubov Popova (Russia), Athi-Patra Ruga (South Africa), Bella Rune (Sweden), Sergey Sapozhnikov (Russia), Beverly Semmes (USA), Kamruzzaman Shadhin (Bangladesh), Vladislav Shapovalov (Russia/Italy), Varvara Stepanova (Russia), Günta Stölzl (Germany), Yuichiro Tamura (Japan), Pedro Valtierra (Mexico), Portia Zvavahera (Zimbabwe), and others.

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