It's a man's man's world

By GREG COOK | August 3, 2010

The place is empty, silent — it feels abandoned. It's all men's clothes, in a place where lifestyles go to die, or to be given new life. At the same time, it's the graveyard of our intentional-obsolescence, mass-produced American Dream. But, of course, all the clothing and furnishings are handmade by LeDray. Which turns it into a manifesto about the value of recycled materials and handcraft at a time when art and the world are ever more synthetic and manufactured.

LeDray began the installation in 2006, before the economy tanked, and he spent three years crafting it all. From the vantage point of our Great Recession, it feels like a going-out-of-business sale at the end of the world.

Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In a previous version of this story, Greg Cook incorrectly stated that Jen Mergel initiated the Charles LeDray exhibit. In fact, the idea for the survey was initially proposed by former ICA curator Nicholas Baume.

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Topics: Museum And Gallery , Institute of Contemporary Arts, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Charles LeDray, More

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ARTICLES BY GREG COOK

A REALLY BIG SHOW! | May 21, 2013
This showcase of tomorrow's-art-stars-today is both invigorating and overwhelming, with work by 194 students.

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN | May 13, 2013
What does it mean to be a man? That's the question at the heart of this smart, sumptuous exhibit — one of the best shows in the region this year.

MERRY PRANKSTERS | May 07, 2013
Parked out front of Brown University's gray modernist Granoff Center on a recent sunny morning were one of those 15-foot-tall inflatable rats that unions install in front of businesses they're protesting and a limousine sloppily painted to resemble a yellow and black school bus.

ALTERED IMAGES | April 30, 2013
Among the handsome Washington Street storefronts of AS220's renovated Mercantile Block building, with their neo-old-timey signs, is the residents' entrance to the building. It is against AS220's religion to leave any space empty that can be filled with art. So the lobby is the AS220 Resident Gallery, which occupants of the building take turns filling with their stuff.

IN THE CITY | April 23, 2013
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Providence art scene is how the city itself has been such a rich subject. A decade ago, the city became a galvanizing topic as artists fought to protect the old mills that served as their homes and studios from demolition — with mixed success. But lately, the community's industrial architecture itself has attracted artists' attention.