The act of dressing, though an ordinary domestic rite, is an exquisitely choreographed performance. Subtle repeated movements, gestures and tactile engagement with furniture, objects and surrounding space demonstrate a private yet performative way of being. The dressing room represents a lexicon of endless meaning and possibility, an open stage where routines and patterns naturally articulate a distinct personal identity. The exhibition’s title, The Semiotics of Dressing is an ode to the artist Martha Rosler’s feminist video work, The Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), which explored the unsettling significance of everyday kitchen utensils as symbols of domestic labor, oppression and control. Similarly, this exhibition investigates the way in which a seemingly banal and habitual task can be laden with complex notions of identity, power, agency and self actualization.

In The Semiotics of Dressing, contemporary artists interrogate the concept of the dressing room as a private place of metamorphosis; it is a jewel box where delicate adornments become instruments in service of beauty. Furniture, lighting, art and decorative objects comprise the dressing room’s scenography, a deliberate and thoughtful – even possibly peculiar – arrangement. Particular rituals exercised in private (even secret) versus what is public (the costume, the mask), provide fertile grounds for artistic exploration throughout a variety of materials such as metal, gemstones, textiles, glass, found objects and more. These artistic articulations signify the act of dressing as a singular, theatrical composition, uniquely one’s own.