Deidre Poster
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Theatre, Dance & Fashion
Deidre Poster
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Diedre
Working in theater was eye-opening, the way the project unfolded over time as everyone came to understand the text had a different quality than in the art space, perhaps not more collaborative, but there was certainly more discussion about the poet’s meanings. The play was a short piece by W.B. Yeats, his 1906 Deirdre, a poetic story of love, power, and betrayal. I designed the set – a massive, curved wall to suggest the heroine’s entrapment, and giant warrior heads to represent the armed forces arraigned against her. These heads, which were modeled on the Lewis chess pieces in the Scottish National Museum, were lowered on to the set at various times in the action. I made a short video of birds rising in flight to serve as an introduction to the action. The production premiered at the MOD Theater at CalArts, and then the producer, Susan Solt, found support from the Dunnard Fund to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Silmane Vogue Project
I got a call one morning in the spring of 2013 from Dodie Kazanjian, contributing editor for Vogue, asking if I would be interested in doing a portrait of the designer Hedi Slimane for the upcoming September issue. She warned me that final approval would sit with Anna Wintour, but that the editorial team was excited to see what I would do. Flattering. I spent a morning with Slimane at his place in Trousdale Estates, chatting and taking photos. I made several paintings, finally settling on a double portrait to submit to the magazine. Anna Wintour approved, and it was published as a two page spread in the September issue, with Jennifer Lawrence on the cover.
Dodie Kazanjian was also director of Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera, and shortly afterwards she invited me to participate in a show celebrating the restaging of Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor. I was able to repurpose some of the unpublished Slimane portraits and studies for this.
Vogue
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Till You Drop
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Till You Drop
Lauri Firstenberg invited me to participate in the LAXART Benefit, to be held at the fabled, possibly haunted, Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. I asked the dancer Flora Weigman and the composer Nina Waisman to collaborate on the piece. We chose an octagonal room at one end of the building, I designed a set of painted screens, Waisman constructed an interactive sound work based on various found music from the 1920s, and Wegman and her dancers improvised as they triggered the sound.