Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 7:30pm
A Provisional Account of Some Clothes on Film

361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn

Presented by Lisa Cohen

It seems simple enough: To show some of the ways clothes have mattered in moving pictures—and see what emerges from the collection. How the camera has loved clothes (or hasn’t), and some people wearing them. How clothing, costume, fashion have worked as subject matter, character, mise en scène; have spoken of sex, of transformation, constraint. Clothes as a joke, as performance, as daily life, as part of making art, as melodramatic swirl. Structure and stretchiness; inadvertent undressing; humiliation, pleasure, yearning; shoes dancing, satin flashing, more unaffected textures. An invitation to think about who wears what, and who designed it. When is the subway a catwalk? (Always.) What is adamantly personal style and what is studio style? What’s in the bag? A series of quick changes; a wholly partial and preliminary investigation; another sort of celluloid closet? A collision of moments, in color and black and white, from work directed by Oscar Micheaux, Chantal Akerman, Ken Jacobs, Howard Hawks, Robert Parrish, Barbara Loden, Bette Gordon, Michelle Memran, Luchino Visconti, more—and including designers Sandy Powell, Edith Head, Ruth E. Carter, Ossie Clark, many others.

- LC

Lisa Cohen writes about clothes, books, art, and film, and is the author of All We Know: Three Lives.

Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.

Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.