The Southampton Arts Center presents “Second Skin,” a group exhibition that explores the intersection of art and fashion. On view from October 4 to December 28, the exhibition will showcase works by international artists and designers. The exhibition positions clothing as a powerful medium for articulating identity, expressing gender and cultural differences, and advancing political activism.
Curated by Latin American art scholar Estrellita B. Brodsky, “Second Skin” presents approximately 30 works from the early 1950s to the present, with a strong emphasis on Latin America. The exhibition features photography, sculpture, textiles, wearable objects, and archival material, including various prints from Martine Gutierrez’s acclaimed “Indigenous Woman” and a selection of Andy Warhol works on paper from the Jordan D. Schnitzer Foundation.
Conceived as a sequel to “Spin a Yarn,” an exhibition presented at Guild Hall in spring 2024 that explored textiles as tools of storytelling, this new chapter shifts the focus to fashion as wearable, lived objects that can serve as critical sites. Included are artists who use dress and visual representation to shape narratives of identity, power, and cultural memory. Bringing together practitioners who interrogate the sociopolitical relationship between the body and fashion, the exhibition positions clothing as a determining site for articulating both individual and collective identity.
The exhibition unfolds through the three thematically curated galleries. The first highlights fashion as a marker of identity, the second examines garments as protective devices, and the third considers clothing as a consumer product within global markets. Across these spaces, sculpture, photography, video, wearable technology, and speculative fashion explore the multifaceted roles that clothing plays in society.
Some of the artists featured in “Second Skin,” including Felix Baudry and Nazareth Pacheco, craft their own clothing to propose alternative identities or shields against political violence or sexual aggression. Others, such as Joiri Minaya and Stephanie Syjuco, cull commercially available ethnic patterns and tropical prints to subvert racial and colonial thinking and critique the fashion industry’s beauty standards and commodification of bodies. Employing a forensic/documentary approach, others document the growth of clandestine camouflage and bulletproof garment workshops across Latin America, reflecting on the region’s violent histories.
Moving beyond the notion of fashion as mere ornament or superficial decoration, the exhibition explores how fashion serves as a site where identities are constructed, commodified, resisted, and critically reclaimed.
“Second Skin expands the conversation around fashion by showing how garments operate in our daily lives — they protect us from the elements, they shape our identity, and represent a powerful cultural language,” said Christina M. Strassfield, Executive Director & Chief Curator, Southampton Arts Center.
“It is an honor to partner with Southampton Arts Center and bring the spotlight to artists from Latin America within a global context. The artists presented here reveal how fashion can convey social and political status, while also serving as a source of shared cultural memory and critical discourse,” said Estrellita B. Brodsky, Curator, philanthropist.
An exhibition opening reception will take place on Saturday, October 11, from 5 to 7 PM.