OUT/FIT
October 24 – December 3, 2022

Curated by Kelly Kirkland and Miwah Lee

OUT/FIT is a group exhibition highlighting three Los Angeles-based artists – Charles Kelman, Nathaniel Santos, and Min Ji Son – who use the visual language of fashion design as a narrative framework to be expanded and disrupted. Each artist pays homage to the layered systems of garment production, often working on a small scale with repurposed and handmade materials and prioritizing process over final product. The resulting garment-objects reveal unique stories about the relationship between humans, clothes, and the environment – a kinetic exchange marked by harmony and conflict, construction and deconstruction, and dreamlike visions of a future built on the remnants of the past.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Min Ji Son’s practice Minxcenter is a richly dimensional, multi-character universe built out through a complex process of layering media. Pencil drawings of figures, ceramic figurines of those drawings, paintings of those figurines, and digital renderings of all of the above culminate in designs that the artist transfers onto fabric and sews into gloves, socks, hats, dresses, and more. Minxcenter outfits are thus a gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, consisting of characters that exist in infinitely mutable forms.

Nathaniel Santos’ latest collection DESPERADO for his label BEBET consists of recycled fabrics sourced from thrift stores: miniskirts, beaded bracelets, and neon fabrics are paired with avant-garde cutting and draping in a dialogue between y2k aesthetics and minimalist design. Pinned and reshaped with the designer’s signature book rings, these items are a study in fashion nostalgia. The materials themselves are just as important as the places they represent, who cites the “raw, ephemeral, desperate glamour” shared by LAand Reno as inspiration for the collection.

Charles Kelman, the artist behind the clothing label Fear Safe, views upcycling as a way to resist consumer-capitalist waste. His recent work involves developing lace through a process of destruction: by manipulating disregarded garments into delicate gowns, Kelman points to the fragility of our ecosystem under industrialization, while also highlighting the beauty that can be found amidst the decay.

Kelly Kirkland is a freelance researcher based in San Francisco, CA. She has supported numerous exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the De Young Museum and was a 2018-19 writer-in-residence at Art Practical, where she published essays and reviews highlighting emerging artists in the Bay Area. Her areas of interest include fashion criticism, trend research, independent publishing, and olfactory culture. This is her first collaboration with The Holland Project.

Miwah Lee is a first-generation Korean American photographer and director living and working out of Los Angeles. She is a former student of UNR, graduating with a BFA in Photography. Her strong interest in fashion and music has led her career in fashion photography, creative styling, and directing. Her focus has been to collaborate with creative conceptual designers who are challenging the status quo and building community.

Photo Album

This exhibition was part of our 2022 Curator Series which is supported in part by Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.