A live workshop, studio, performance space and installation: Chicks On Speed combine cutting edge technology with contemporary craft. Chicks on Speed have been interrogating the boundaries of art, craft and music since they first formed in Munich in 1997. In 2009 they bring their interdisciplinary practice to Melbourne, presenting their first Australian solo exhibition Viva La Craft!
Functioning as both a work in progress and a space to exhibit the real results of experimentation and research, Viva La Craft! will transform Craft Victoria's three gallery spaces into a laboratory of craft development. Traditional techniques of millinery, silk screen printing, ceramics, patchwork, tapestry and fashion tailoring will be combined with new research in technical innovation. Importantly, Viva La Craft! will feature the outcomes of collaborations with international and Melbourne-based practitioners, deconstructing and redefining established craft processes.
Appropriating the form of the "happening", an important political strategy of the Surrealists and Situationists, Viva La Craft! will engage Australian students, audiences and practitioners to bring contemporary craft practice into a public forum: an “art camp-ground” for making and designing.
Opening Thursday 12 March, 6-8pm
To be opened by Abi Crompton, Director, Third Drawer Down
Chicks on Speed will be doing an auditorium DJ set
Viva La Craft! is part of the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2009 Cultural Program.
Events and programs
DIY KILLS THEM ALL WITH ONE PIN PRICK: Friday 13 March
4pm LUMP OF CLAY: Irene Grishin-Selzer and Chicks on Speed!
6-7pm Faythe Levine lecture: Craftivism: Reclaiming Craft & Creating Community
Artist, director, author and filmmaker Faythe Levine will lead a visual discussion about the background on the politics of handmade as it stands today. Within a world of mass production, globalized economy, and extreme materialism, what does crafting something by hand mean? Where does craft find itself today? Visual examples of the politics of handmade focusing on political crafters from the DIY/Indie/New Wave of Craft movement including Knitta, Stephanie Syjuco (AntiFactory, Counterfeit Crochet Project), Kate Bingaman-Burt (Obsessive Consumption) and Betsy Greer (Craftivism).
HAND MADE GLOBALISM: Monday 16 March
6pm Faythe Levine, Handmade Nation Workshop: Highlighting the Politics of Craft
Immerse yourself in the politics of handmade. Whether you have never been introduced to the power that can be wielded by craft or if you are a seasoned veteran living a DIY lifestyle, come join the discussion led by Faythe Levine, Director and co-author of Handmade Nation. Each participant will create his or her own embroidery while discussion is stimulated by a series of handouts, photographs and two screenings of political craft in motion.
8pm “A FIRE” a music video by WE ARE THE WORLD (Chicks on Speed Records)
COLOUR LOCATION ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE: Wednesday 18 March
1-4pm Travis Boyer’s short film INDIGO GIRLS and INDIGO DYE VAT workshop!
Chicks on Speed in collaboration with the Plant Craft Cottage present Travis Boyer’s Indigo Girls workshop. Indigo Girls is a craft-action dye event that has been performed in Taxco, Mexico and Brooklyn, New York. Participants dye garments in a natural fermentation indigo dye vat. The results are gratifyingly positive, the craft work is non-age or skill level discriminate. Indigo Girls is about auto-fashion empowerment, creativity, identity, and references many ancient cross-cultural textile art techniques, which are often gendered in terms of labour and value. Dyed garments will be hung to dry on a washing line in the Craft Victoria gallery space and will form part of the installation Viva La Craft!
FOR THE LOVE OF THE OBJEKT INSTRUMENT: Friday 20 March
7-8pm Dylan Martorell and Chicks on Speed!
At the Victorian Tapestry Workshop
Chicks on Speed artist talk Tuesday 17 March
As part of their residency/art exhibition/performance the Chicks will be constructing a tapestry theremin with the assistance of weavers from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in situ at Craft Victoria. The Victorian Tapestry Workshop is delighted to host the Chicks on Speed artist talk, extending the conversation of contemporary tapestry practices.
At Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces
Chicks on Speed in Conversation Thursday 19 March
During the development of their exhibition for Craft Victoria the Chicks On Speed are in residence at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and in this one-off event they will open the doors of their studio for a conversation with Alexie Glass (and the audience) in an intimate tête-à-tête.
Chicks on Speed collaborators
Kathi Glas
Irene Grishin-Selzer
Abigail Crompton & Third Drawer Down
WE ARE THE WORLD
Dylan Martorell
Phillipa Baar
Wolf-Dieter Grabner
Little Red Riding Hood
Marian Hosking and Monash University students
RMIT, School of Architecture & Design Fashion students
Hangar.org (Alex Posada, Jano Bizzotto, Merche Blasco, Diego Rodriguez Gomez)
Travis Boyer
CLUE
A.L. Steiner
Robbinschilds
Daigo Kamimura - NIR
Insight
Lisa Walker
Jeremy Scott
Karl Lagerfeld
Faythe Levine
LEE COOPER
Designers Against Aids
Christophe Coppins
Deborah Schamoni
Chicks on Speed Records
MODUL8
Mariah Garnet
Edward Booth-Clibborn
Victorian Tapestry Workshop
Crystal Ball
Mustafa Tunc
Chanel
Anat Ben-David
Douglas Gordon
Sonia Rykiel
Kai Knappe
Jean Charles de Castelbajac
Special thanks to the Museum of Modern Art Kyoto and Adi Nachman for production on Extended Paintbrush and Honenin video pieces
Download attachments
Chicks on Speed biography
Chicks on Speed: Art Rules by Franz Liebl (2008)
Chicks on Speed: No Pop by Pil and Galia Kollectiv (2005)
Links
Chicks on Speed official website
Chicks on Speed Music
The Influencers - Chicks on Speed videos
It's A Project at Deitch Projects, New York
Chicks on Speed and Douglas Gordon at MOMA, New York
Shoe F***! at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
Frieze Magazine review of Shoe F***!
Super Suits, Modul8 and Hangar
