BRIDE FIGHT presents two bridal gowns that are poised in combat, shredding one another's garments as each simultaneously explodes from within. The disengaged fragments of the gowns are suspended between the floor and ceiling using heavy-duty monofilament line and metal hardware. Day's sculpture recalls the dynamics of Italian Futurism, especially works such as Gino Severini's "Dynamism of a Dancer" (1912), and Umberto Boccioni's "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space" (1913); the Dada attitude expressed in Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" (1912); the painterly suspension and gestural motion of Jackson Pollock's 1950s drip paintings; and the cinematic computer animation displayed in "The Matrix" movies.
The artist describes BRIDE FIGHT: "The tropes of the bridal ensemble are shattered. Within the tension of hundreds of monofilaments are tulle veils, long lace gloves, garters, shoes, hair pieces, pearls, beads, and silk, meticulously frozen in space. The loaded metaphor of battling brides in mid-explosion is an ecstatic expression of liberation and transformation, while vestiges of tradition remain recognizable, and intact. BRIDE FIGHT developed from a series of installations called "Exploding Couture," begun in 1999, in which I suspend women's dresses in space. Each dress portrays a view of a conventional feminine stereotype in a dramatic stop-action explosion. The "explosions" are constructed to feel as if the internal forces of the figure are so powerful that the garment literally blows off, as if it is outgrowing its stereotype. Ecstasy, strength, humor, and release are emotions I associate with the expression of these sculptures." This work is Day's most ambitious and complex and represents a manifestation of anxiety and humor, memorializing an active state of transformation of a tradition that generates $72 billion per year in the United States.
E. V. Day was born in New York City in 1967, and studied at Hampshire College, Amherst, and Yale University, New Haven (MFA, 1995). Her work as been exhibited recently at Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Henry Urbach Architecture, New York; and the Brooklyn Museum. She is represented by Deitch Projects, New York. The artist lives and works in New York City.
Richard D. Marshall, Curator
