A.I.R. Gallery
The Art of Sleep
Daria Dorosh
May 5 - 31, 2015 Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7, 6 - 8pm
A.I.R. Gallery is delighted to present The Art of Sleep, an installation of new work by Daria Dorosh, New York based artist and co–founder of A.I.R. Gallery. This is Dorosh’s seventeenth solo show at A.I.R. The Art of Sleep will be on view in Gallery I, May 5 – 31, 2015, with an opening reception Thursday, May 7th, 6–8pm. Special expanded days for the May shows at A.I.R.’s new location in DUMBO will be Tuesday – Sunday, 12–6pm. The gallery will be closed during Memorial Day weekend.
The Art of Sleep weaves a bedtime story about a personal sleep ritual, which asks, can a creative ritual, inspired by art, elevate one’s self image before falling asleep, and thereby set the stage for a deeper sleep experience and richer waking life?
The installation features fantastical textile and gemstone Night Jewelry, each on its own photo-perch for when it is not being worn; a Pond Bed covered with floating islands of textile flowers with lavender–filled pockets accented with quartz, tourmaline, and amethyst gemstones; a gauze-like linen Sleep Shirt with a multi-colored textile Winding Garland studded with gemstones, to be worn for contemplation of the self and celebrate the body in all stages of life. In the corners of the gallery, large, fragmented digital prints of striking, yet menacing Fashion Monsters allude to the dream journey we make each night that we sometimes remember, and sometimes are glad we do not.
The artist says: “I am interested in the body as a biological and political site for art. Fashion is social politics; our nightwear grew out of the dignity and economic advancement that was hard-won by the working class after the Industrial Revolution. Digital devices map our bodies during the day making sleep privacy’s final frontier, its last safe haven from commercial exploitation. It is ironic that the body, often the only possession of the powerless — slaves, servants, women, children, the poor — has become the most coveted site for commerce with the invention of the computer and cell phone. How fitting that text, textile, and technology all originate from the same Latin root — texere, to weave.”
DARIA DOROSH is an artist, educator, and researcher with SMARTlab Digital Media Institute, where she completed her PhD in 2007. She works in the intersection of art, fashion, and new media. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, NY, where she has taught fashion design since 1969, and at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, NY. She exhibits regularly at A.I.R. Gallery, and is currently editing and writing a chapter on the politics of nightwear for her anthology, The Art of Sleep.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible. For all press inquiries, please contact: JoAnne McFarland, Co-Director.