SECCA exhibits dismantle fabric of our lives

The thread that connects two exhibitions at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art is, literally, thread.

Margarita Cabrera's exhibition "The Space in Between" and the large group show "Out of Fashion" engage issues related to the craft and industry of sewing. Most of the works are handmade or machine-made largely, if not entirely, of thread-based fabric.

Thematically, these shows are particularly relevant to our part of the country, still adjusting to the sharp decline in textile manufacturing, a vital economic engine for the region during the 20th century. Cabrera's work also engages topical issues including workers' rights, immigrant rights, globalization and the relationship between this country and Mexico.

Many successful contemporary artists hire assistants to help fabricate their work. Cabrera has taken this practice several steps further by creating a multinational corporation that hires Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States, including undocumented workers, to make her sculptures and other pieces.

The mission statement of the corporation, Florezca, emphasizes humanitarian principles and a primary goal of empowering employees, although the company is also structured to profit investors. Workers are given fair wages, immersive training in art and artisanal production, and legal protections, including foreign workers' visas. They also have an option to buy shares in the corporation. (For details, see www.florezca.com.)

The show consists of objects made by these workers under Cabrera's direction. Most of these pieces mimic or otherwise reference brand-name products manufactured by multinational corporations.

The sculptures resemble tools, food items, packs of cigarettes, kitchen appliances, bicycles, articles of clothing and other familiar products. But they aren't functional, in part because they're made mostly of soft vinyl, a material often used to cover armchairs and sofas.

The work brings to mind the "soft sculptures" that Claes Oldenburg made in the 1960s, works that suggest giant, deflated-looking versions of ordinary objects such as telephones and hamburgers. Like Oldenburg, Cabrera's art takes critical aim at our consumer society, but she extends that stance into altruistic social and economic action.

The showstopper is a full-size replica of a Hummer, the luxury SUV of what was originally a military vehicle.

Lest viewers miss the irony, an accompanying text points out that this sculptural model of a "first world status symbol" was "assembled by anonymous third world hands."

"Out of Fashion" brings together works by 16 artists, five of whom collaborate under the name Common Seam Collective. Several are from North Carolina. They all make fashion-derived works that comment on related topics.

Writing in the show's small catalog, Steven Matijcio, SECCA's exhibitions curator, thematically frames the show as a forward-looking homage to fashion's role in the state's textile-manufacturing history.

Among the show's most compelling works are three performance-augmented sculptures from Stephanie Liner's "Momentos of a Doomed Construct" series. The sculptural components of these pieces center on enclosed compartments just large enough to accommodate the young, petite, female performers that Liner engages to temporarily occupy them.

They're like highly compacted, single-passenger versions of the cabs in fancy, old-fashioned, horse-drawn carriages. The ornately floral-patterned fabric with which they're upholstered on interior and exterior surfaces matches the fabric of the 19th-century-style dresses worn by the model/performers.

When they're in costume and inside their compartments, these women appear to have been literally sewn in place, trapped in their ornately claustrophobic worlds and indiscriminately exposed through porthole-style windows.

Peering in at them, viewers are likely to get the uncomfortable feeling that they have become voyeurs. If you missed seeing the performers on the show's opening night, the color photographs will give you an idea of the effect.

Other highlights from "Out of Fashion" include a striking, thematically provocative mural by Lauren Frances Adams; R. Brooke Priddy's sprawling installation of unspooled thread; Precious Lovell's evocatively augmented vests that recall the painful injustices of slavery; and Mary Tuma's descriptively titled "Unraveled Armani."