Exhibition Reception
Friday, September 29, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
The evening will celebrate the fall exhibitions and feature open studios by current resident artists.Artist & Curator Tour
Saturday, September 30, 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Join Max Adrian, the artist behind RIPSTOP, and the exhibition’s curator, Sarah Darro, for an intimate tour of Adrian’s patchworked, pneumatic sculptures.
Max Adrian: RIPSTOP is a solo exhibition of patchwork textiles and inflatable sculptures by the Ohio-based fiber artist. Adrian’s volumetric, pneumatic work transports viewers into a realm of artifice, desire, and worldbuilding. Drawing from rich legacies of queer fiber art and theory, including the AIDS memorial quilt and José Esteban Muñoz’s foundational text, Cruising Utopia, the exhibition features monumentally scaled works that physically respond to the presence of viewers by filling with air. “The sculptures’ constant state of performing, or becoming, reflects Adrian’s interests in queerness as an inherently utopian and future-oriented mode of being,” says Sarah Darro, Curator and Exhibitions Director at HCCC.
RIPSTOP features sculptures made from patchwork faux fur, satin, pleather, fringe, and ripstop—the show’s namesake—a woven nylon material that allows the pieces to inflate and hold air. Adrian’s use of alluring, sensual fabrics reflects the material culture of queer and kink communities, while the handwrought textile techniques and inflatable technology he employs are drawn from his background working in a commercial mascot shop. Though many of his works are built from the scraps of those high-profile commercial characters, they—unlike mascots—interrogate consumption and capitalist desire. Informed by the aesthetics of drag, puppetry, and camp horror films, works like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-2019) become subversive, representing violence, repression, and the hyperstimulation of late capitalism.
While in isolation during COVID-19, Adrian’s work shifted to an investigation of desire and queerness at an infrastructural scale. His modernist bounce-house sculpture, A Fallible Complex (2021), continues the entangled history of inflatable architecture and utopian experimentation that sprang forth in the late 1960s through collectives like Ant Farm and Utopie. This monumental piece defies the expectations of a space designed for play and pleasure. It’s alluring but its entrance is blocked. While its many portholes invite spectatorship and voyeurism, if one were to attempt to enter the colorful maze of interlocking levels, they would be met with a missing floor. The structure is promising but ultimately unstable. RIPSTOP suggests that the world Adrian desires, like queer utopia itself, is not here quite yet. It is on the horizon.
RIPSTOP is curated by HCCC Curator and Exhibitions Director, Sarah Darro.
About Max Adrian
Max Adrian (he/they) is a textile artist interested in ideas about queerness, desire, and consumerism. His soft-sculptural practice finds inspiration in a variety of sewing-related crafts like quilting, bag making, inflatables, puppetry, drag, and fetish wear. Adrian employs an evocative aesthetic of bold colors and tactile materials that tease expectations of pleasure. His work envisions a postmodern playscape, where bodies and objects are blurred, asking how the things humans desire impact a sense of personal identity and community building.
Adrian holds a BFA in fiber and creative writing from the Kansas City Art Institute, as well as an MFA in fiber and material studies from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. He has worked professionally as a puppeteer, a mascot costume stitcher, and a production artist at Otherworld, an immersive art experience. Adrian was a 2022 Career Advancement Fellow and a 2015 Windgate Fellow with the Center for Craft. His practice has been supported by a variety of residencies including Vermont Studio Center, Lighthouse Works, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and Millay Arts. He is based in Columbus, Ohio.
Image credits:
- Max Adrian, “A Fallible Complex,” 2021. Nylon ripstop, blower, motion sensor. 92 x 136 x 76 inches. Photo by Jake Holler.
- Max Adrian, “A Fallible Complex (Detail),” 2021. Nylon ripstop, blower, motion sensor. 92 x 136 x 76 inches. Photo by Jake Holler.
- Max Adrian, “The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines,” 2017-2019. Faux fur, pleather, chains, velour, fringe, glitter, bells, hardware, blowers, timers. Photo by Max Adrian.
- Max Adrian, “Constellation Quilt (Eccentric Stars),” 2021. Pleather, athletic mesh, grommets, chain, hardware. 36 x 36 inches. Photo by Max Adrian.
- Max Adrian, “Threshold for the Cyber Citizen (Daytime Mode),” 2022. Nylon ripstop, fans, LED lights, selfie light, iPhone 5s, video, extension cords, power strip. Photo by Jake Holler.
- Max Adrian, Installation view of “Threshold” and “Leather Baby” in the exhibition Playscape at Skylab Gallery in Columbus, OH, 2022. Photo by Jake Holler.
- Max Adrian, “The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines,” 2017-2019. Faux fur, pleather, chains, velour, fringe, glitter, bells, hardware, blowers, timers. Photo by Max Adrian.
- Max Adrian, “Leather Baby,” 2021. Pleather, leather, grommets, hardware, chain. 14 x 14 x 22 inches. Photo by Max Adrian.
- Max Adrian, “Queer Quilt with Asymmetrical Accessory,” 2019. Pleather, athletic mesh, chains, yarn, grommets, hardware, hooks. 28 x 18 inches. Photo by Max Adrian.
- Max Adrian, “The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines,” 2017-2019. Faux fur, pleather, chains, velour, fringe, glitter, bells, hardware, blowers, timers. Photo by Max Adrian.
