All the Anne Elizabeth Moore News That's Happened Lately

[Anne Elizabeth Moore]

Friends,

I'm thrilled to announce the debut of my latest project, Garment Work, at NEXT, the Fall Pilotenkueche exhibition at the Spinnerei in Leipzig, Germany.

Garment Work (2010) is a project by Anne Elizabeth Moore conducted in residence at the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, formerly one of the largest and longest-running textile mills in the world. A site for early radical socialist organizing and a haven of sorts under the GDR, the Baumwollspinnerei took a heavy hit when the Berlin Wall fell, and let most employees go, eventually ceasing production entirely and opening its doors to artists and galleries. Local demand for textiles, however, did not decrease in 1989, nor the products they are made from, and shortly after the Fall of the Wall, an international policy was formulated called the Multi-Fibre Agreement. This trade policy was originally intended to allow the world’s most impoverished countries the chance to enter the garment manufacturing game. Today, this agreement has ended, alongside the local benefits it ensured, so Cambodian women now make t-shirts and jeans for the US and Germany under harsh and unliveable conditions. 

Garment Work incorporates video, an installation of the constituent elements of a single pair of German-manufactured jeans, and a Tagebuch, kept in German, that references the Baumwollspinnerei’s Brigadebucher, regular diaries of sociopolitical life at the textile mill under the GDR. The attendant video distills 34 hours and 36 minutes of labor into a ten-hour video of Moore’s durational performance, which involved taking apart a pair of jeans with her bare hands under the contemporary conditions of the former textile mill over the course of three weeks. The length of the video mimics the Cambodian garment worker’s workday, inclusive of to ten-minute breaks, a short lunch, and mandatory overtime. The performance also refers to the loss of Moore’s personal relationship, with a German academic who writes about jeans, and her journalistic and activist work on the Cambodian textile industry and the women who uphold it. Garment Work is a meditation on capitalism, integrity, loss, and perseverance.

Garment Work can be seen at NEXT, or watch the ten-minute preview video here. A Phnom Penh exhibition will be announced soon.

NEXT: Spinnerei Str 7, Halle 18, 2.etage, Leipzig 04179, September 10- 12, 2010

Resident artists from Pilotenkueche will exhibit together during the Spinnerei's Fall Gallery Tour (Großer Herbstrundgang). The exhibition will feature new work by Anne Elizabeth Moore (Chicago), Cindy Cordt (Leipzig), Elizabeth White (New York), Jill Muessig (Halle), Joe Becker (Toronto), Mack Eshete (Addis Ababa), Piotr Rambowski (Bremen), Ryan Foley (Boston), and Thomas Behling (Leipzig).

Revision Street: America

There are people who enjoy both Revision Street: America and Facebook, so the good people at AEMHQ have made their lives even easier by creating a "fan" page that, if you are on Facebook, you can "like" and then receive updates as they are posted to the site. Make it happen. We're really excited about this amazing technology that will allow us to stay in close communication with those people who like Facebook.

Also, we are having a contest. Not just on Facebook, but on the real Internet, too. Basically, if you email, "post," "tweet," or otherwise communicate to me digitally your favorite Studs Terkel quote, and it is more awesome than the others I have received, I will send you a Revision Street: America original poster by Alana Bailey. You can click here to read this same information in a different font.

Finally

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been awarded a Chances Dances Critical Fierceness Grant, a micro-grant for queer art in Chicago. Chances Dances funded The Selling of Socialism, a project that debuted at the Center for Endless Progress in Berlin in August, will also be included in the NEXT exhibition, will appear eventually in some sort of book-related form. Chances Dances—a funding apparatus and a dance party—is run by some of the most interesting artists in town, so spend some time poking around their site. Start with the Gender Neutral Bathroom signs.

Here's more info, straight from the source: Since its founding in 2005, Chances Dances has sought to create a safe space for all gender expressions by bringing together the varied LGBTIQ communities of Chicago. The creation of the Critical Fierceness grant expands upon this goal by offering a unique opportunity for queer artistic expression. Chicago-based individuals or groups who wish to utilize the Critical Fierceness Grant for artistic purposes and who identify themselves or their work as queer are encouraged to apply. Critical Fierceness supports queer artists with financial assistance of up to $500. Chances Dances is proud to provide the Critical Fierceness Grant as an opportunity for personal exploration, community development and radical change through art. Our next deadline is December 31st.

*CHANCES*

Third Mondays at Subterranean, 10p-2a

2011 W. North Ave., Chicago

Always FREE!

*CHANCES @ The Hideout*

First Saturdays at The Hideout, 11.30p-3a

1354 W. Wabansia Ave., Chicago

$5 Admission benefits

The Critical Fierceness Grant,

a micro-grant for queer art in Chicago