K8 Hardy

Docudrama

October 2 – November 12, 2016

This is not a perfect copy of the Untitled Runway Show (2012). I’m prepared not to

include every single solitary look. The jockstrap dress (!) wasn’t even in the show, I

made it a few years later.

For the 2012 Whitney Biennial, the idea was to carry my looks off, a fashion show with

an out and impolitic product, one not even being hocked, in a seamlessly realized

runway show. Oscar Tuazon built a brutal runway structure on the museum's fourth

floor. All the right conduct *except* for the clothes, hair, make-up (and the music, and

the model's slowed-down movement). The looks are my thrift store, bargain store,

sewing machine, cut, craft, and recycle style job.

This time the looks are fit on mannequins, not on models who walk the runway. They

have the looks on, plus shoes, and wigs for hair (except for a few headless mannequins).

A question: Do I like the idea of making this show as if it were a costume exhibition? It

will be some kind of mise-en-scène: a dance party, cliques. All these people. What are

they doing?

The mannequins are new and used; light brown and dark brown; yellow and silver. I

painted them and fucked them up a bit. This is not a celebration of an optimistic race

rainbow or a celebration of whiteness, but maybe an acknowledgement that the

mannequins project a Western Euroethnic Grecian norm of gender, beauty, and body

image. There is a plus size mannequin. If a mannequin is too large-breasted, it’s a

problem for the clothes. Then there are the positions: one is flying from the ceiling.

Some of the cheaper mannequins had pre-painted makeup on their faces. But not

anymore! Some are expressing slut power.

Express Looks (Outfitumentary) (2016), an “express” edit of Hardy’s feature-length film

Outfitumentary (2001-2012/2016), will screen in the gallery.

This is K8 Hardy’s sixth showing with Reena Spaulings. Recent exhibitions include

YDRAH 8K at KM– Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz (2014), New Cuts

(curated by Rhea Anastas) at the University Art Galleries, Clare Trevor School of the

Arts, University of California, Irvine (2015) and Human Interest: Portraits from the

Whitney’s Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2016). Hardy’s work is

included in the permanent collections of the Whitney and Guggenheim museums. She

has also exhibited at the Tate Modern, the Dallas Contemporary, Tensta Konsthalle,

Karma International … Hardy is a founding member of the journal LTTR.