Cat Chow
FORM FOLLOWS FABRICATION
Born in Morristown, New Jersey
Works in Brooklyn, New York
The invisible sub-products of the garment industry are the stuff of Cat Chow’s art – zippers, snaps, bobbins, rivets, tape measures, and jewelry tags, among others. Manuf®actured brings together a selection of pieces that explore the creative potential of the industrial zipper, using this manufactured sewing notion as raw material while expanding its technical and poetic possibilities.
Chow sewed a spiraling feminine form for Bonded, an elegant floor-length white gown; she created more complex undulating spatial constructions for Consume and Zipper Tassel; and she reached the conceptual limits of the zipper in unDress, a flattened spiral of cloth and metal. By taking the zipper dress off the body and placing it on gallery walls and pedestals, Chow invites us to consider these pieces as art objects, all the while raising a series of provocative questions. How can the intrinsic hardness of a metal be softened? How can a flexible fabric assume a structural role? How can a non-precious material be treated in a precious way? And perhaps most importantly, how can fashion be shaped into art?
Chow successfully merges a tinkerer’s passion for solving material challenges with a dressmaker’s innate sense of form and a minimalist’s interest in conceptual thinking. While her meticulous fabrication process links directly to the practice of studio and domestic craft, it can be said that Chow’s work resides most comfortably in the Venn diagram–like intersection where the worlds of art, craft, and design meet, and her greatest strength remains her power to transform ordinary materials into extra-ordinary objects.
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
Cat Chow, unDress, 2004; Single zipper; Collection of the artist
Cat Chow, Consume, 2003; Two single lengths of zipper, thread; Collection of the artist
Cat Chow, Bonded, 2000; Single zipper; Collection of the artist
Cat Chow, unDress, 2006;
Photos by Patrick Walsh;
Courtesy of Cat Chow;
Total running time: Approx. 1 minute
Cat Chow, Zipper Tassle, 2008 Zippers; Collection of the artist
