Steal the Art. Wear the Art.
@ Childhood Factured's Phygital Art Gallery
1432 W Irving Park, Chicago, IL 60613
Opening Friday, October 9th, from 7PM - 11PM
On view through Thursday, October 15th
Steal the Art. Wear the Art.
There is something wonderfully unruly about a painting that refuses to stay on the wall.
For his latest exhibition, Allen Vandever brings that idea into full view with Steal the Art. Wear the Art an evening devoted to hand-painted clothing, original canvas work, and the increasingly porous line between fine art and fashion.
The event takes place October 9, from 7:00 to 11:30 PM, at Childhood Fractured’s Phygital Art Gallery, 1432 W Irving Park Rd., Chicago.
Vandever has spent years transforming jackets, coats, blazers, and other garments into singular painted objects. The work is part fashion, part painting, part performance. Each piece carries the immediacy of a studio practice while also functioning as something far more intimate: an artwork worn directly on the body.
That distinction matters.
In a traditional gallery, art is observed from a respectful distance. Here, it walks into the room. It bends at the elbow. It catches light. It changes depending on who is wearing it.
The result is less about fashion as trend and more about fashion as authorship.
Each garment becomes a moving composition, layered with color, gesture, texture, and evidence of the artist’s hand. No two are alike, and that individuality is precisely the point. In a culture increasingly defined by repetition, algorithm, and mass production, Vandever’s jackets make a case for the imperfect, tactile, one-of-one object.
The evening will also include live painting, with guests invited to bring a piece of clothing to be transformed during the event. The gesture turns the exhibition into something participatory. Instead of simply viewing the work, visitors can enter into its making.
There is humor in the premise, too.
Bring a jacket. Hand it to an artist. Watch it stop being “a jacket” and become something closer to a portable painting.
Fashion has always borrowed from art, and art has always borrowed from fashion. Vandever’s work simply removes the polite distance between the two.
The result is direct, theatrical, and deeply personal.
And perhaps that is the real appeal of Steal the Art. Wear the Art.
It suggests that art does not have to be precious to have value. It can be handled. It can age. It can travel. It can become part of someone’s identity.
A painting on a wall asks to be looked at.
A hand-painted jacket asks to be lived in.
And on October 9, Vandever is inviting Chicago to do exactly that.
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Tags: Childhood Factured's Phygital Art Gallery, Steal the Art. Wear the Art.
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