Fabric Installation Art of John Toth

JOHN TOTH

Fabric Installations

Fabric Is A Structure For Behavior

Perhaps the earliest memories we have of fabric are from the embryonic membrane that first served as our protective shelter. And immediately from the womb we were dressed in furs, blankets and clothes.

Later, as a child, I crawled under the quilting frame of my grandmother’s Slavic sewing circle. My back to the damp basement floor, I watched, under the quilting frame, as needles poked through the tightly stretched fabric, stitching remnants from our worn out shirts into brightly colored geometric patterns. Sitting around the perimeter, the husbands occasionally rose to readjust the clamps holding the quilt to the frame, testing the tension, aware of the surface. The lights above lit the fabric, coloring the shapes, as I watched below the patterns grew.

I played under fabric landscapes that covered furniture in storage, in the scary part of the attic. Within the quiet moments of hide-and-seek, lying under the fabric protection, I discovered a place that gave refuge and a structure for visual fantasy.

In later years, I camped in dark green resin soaked cotton canvas tents and watched shadowy trees and blistering light bend on sharp angles across the woven textured surface that promised, during rain, not to drip unless I touched it.

As an artist I use fabric to mingle the mystery of materials from brightly colored nylon and synthetic grids to metallic meshes and translucent Mylar’s, with light, film and projected video

Installation Art

	In A Circle painted environment and fabric structure for performance
In A Circle is a collaboration that will use the internet and other technologies to link groups of participants in many sites and cities. The core collaboration at this point is the linking of live performances in Buffalo and New York City via the internet I will create fabric installations in multiple sites that will define the structure and framework for performance and art. Artists in Buffalo include composers, poets, video artists, musicians and visual artists. Artists in New York City will provide choreography, dance , theater, video, opera, composers, musicians, visual arts, cyber arts. Teleconferencing and live internet connections will bring interactive possibilities between performers at different sites. ( a dancer in one city will duet and improvise with a dancer in another city or a visual artist and musician might interact with several dancers in other cities).
	In A Circle # 1f , Audart / Art and technology Circus installation for performance
	In A Circle Victoria Anderson, Choreography
	In A Circle Sarah Carl, Dancer, Actor
Performances with the East Buffalo Media Association
	"Mars" 1a Media Study/Buffalo EBMA performance Don Metz, composer; Michael Basinski, poet fabric, 8-units 18' x 18' x 9'
	"Bat" 1a fabric, 96" x 96" x 96"
In another show at The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y., I created a fabric sculpture installations in collaboration with John Cage and LeJaren Hiller's HPSCHD, with 40 slide projectors, 16 film projectors and 6 harpsichords.
	"HPSCHD" 4a Albright-Knox Art Gallery 8 fabric units, 18' x 18' x 9'
	"HPSCHD" 2a Collaboration with John Cage and LeJaren Hiller fabric installtion with 40 slide projectors and 16- 16mm film projectors

	Elicot Square 2a fabric installation in the Elicot Square Building fabric 40 feet by 60 feet
	Elicot Square 1a fabric installation 2 fabric and wood units, 8 feet by 50 feet white tricot and bent poplar
In 1989 I had the pleasant experience of meeting choreographer Ruby Shang. Ruby saw slides of my stationary fabric installations and thought it would make a good collaboration to have to have her dancers move and manipulate my fabric structures within her dance composition. "TALES OF EXILE" premeired in 1989 at the Lincoln Center "Out-Of-Doors Festival" in New York with Ruby Shang Dance Company and theater performance directed by Gilbert T'sai with music composition by Carman Moore.
	Tales of Exile Collaboration with Ruby Shang and Dance Company, at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival 1989 dancer manipulated fabric structures
	Tales of Exile Gilbert Tsai, director adapted from "Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino
	Tales of Exile Carman Moore, composer and the Sky Music Ensemble with Leroy Jenkins, violin Sam Rivers, saxophone
	Tales of Exile Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival
	Tales of Exile dancer manipulated fabric sculptures by John Toth
	Tales of Exile
	Tales of Exile
	Tales of Exile
	Tales of Exile

	Screen 1a installation with bent poplar and white fabric.
	Net Web fabric installation
	Earth Day 1a performance fabric installation
	Earth Day 2a fabric structures from "Tales of Exile" at Earth Day Festival
	Earth Day Volcano at Earth Day Festival fabric, 72" x 24" cir.

INNER EYE			Family Album
ART	ARCHITECTURE	ARTISTS	DANCE	FASHION
FORUM	GALLERIES	INSTALLATION	EDUCATION	MUSEUMS
MUSIC	PERFORMANCE	PHOTOGRAPHY	PROJECTS	TECHNOLOGY
WRITING	YOGA	VIDEO	VRML	AUDART
John Toth	Ars Bellum		all images copyright 1998 John Toth

web page design / John Toth

definitions:

Unlike traditional art works, installation art has no autonomous existence. It is usually created at the
exhibition site, and its essence is spectator participation. Installation art originated as a radical art
form presented only at alternative art spaces; its assimilation into mainstream museums and galleries
is a relatively recent phenomenon. The move of installation art from the margin to the center of the
art world has had far-reaching effects on the works created and on museum practice.

From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art
Author:Julie Reiss Publisher:MIT Press