QT Bags for Maison Margiela
October 28, 2021–January 7, 2022 / Maison Margiela Crosby Street / New York
Maison Margiela is marking its ongoing support of artists with the debut of a new installation inside its SoHo boutique in New York.
On Oct. 28, the brand will unveil a new mixed-media work by Baltimore-based artists Daniel Wickerham and Malcolm Lomax, who collaborate as Wickerham & Lomax. The installation incorporates imagery of various bags, a recurring motif in the artists’ practice. Their latest work expands the idea of the handbag to include domestic iterations like a laundry bag, vacuum bag and freezer bag.
The four works, displayed as a grid, are named for shuttered gay bars in Baltimore: The G. Central, The Club Bunns, The Migration and The Hippo.
“Margiela’s ideas have influenced our work since the very beginning back in 2009 when we started working together. We structured a whole show at Artist Space around three jackets Margiela made in 2008. His consideration of modes of representation and questioning the reality of a garment have always interested us,” said Wickerham & Lomax. “For the work hanging at 1 Crosby, we added to the chaos by making digital images of domestic appliances turned into gay purses and printed on mirrored acrylic. What we’re calling ‘Quarantine Bags’ are each 4 by 4 feet set in a digital dig site that evoke our favorite gay bars now closed due to the pandemic. All four works are framed in estate sale jewelry in a moat of epoxy with lots of silver gold leaf. Come see them at noon and the sun hits them at the perfect blinding angle all authorship disappears.”
The Wickerham & Lomax installation at Maison Margiela’s Crosby Street store is part of an ongoing artist program. Previous installations included Nude Descending a Staircase No.3 by Marco Brambilla, Cardboard Monsters by Tom Pruitt, and Tabor Robak’s Jumbotron.
The artwork will be on view to the public from Thursday, October 28th until Friday, January 7th, 2022 from 11am – 7PM daily at 1 Crosby Street.
Text adapted from WWD.
