Blue Collar: Clarke & Reilly’s preoccupation with the journey of fabric illuminates America’s unseen workers

Thursday 26th October - Sat 4th November, 2023

SIZED STUDIO, 526 N Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90004

Opening event: Thurs 26th Oct

Press access: Wednesday 25th AM

Press Contact: Alexandra Fanning | alex@alexandrafanning.com

This October, Clarke & Reilly is pleased to present Blue Collar, a solo exhibition at SIZED Studio, West Hollywood. This evocative environment reveals the next incarnation of the artists’ experiments with lengths of journeyed indigo fabric that have eventually become 60 unique, hand-crafted ‘T-shirts,’ a symbol of America and the working class. 

America’s capital of clothing production, LA’s Garment District, is powered by a vast community of generational Angelenos and countless immigrants seeking an increasingly elusive permanence in the sprawl, sometimes in abysmal working conditions. In Blue Collar, Clarke & Reilly aim to illuminate this class of workers, highlighting our increasing disconnection from producing consumer goods and our lack of consideration for the people who manufacture them.

Blue Collar is the next iteration for a series of fabric panels, previously exhibited as part of AD2021, a mixed media installation presented at the former Howard Hughes compound in Los Angeles. These large indigo-hued fabric ‘walls,’ each almost 80ft in length, were formed from material collected by the artists over the years, sourced from the Black Country in England, the French countryside, and the Northeast, and spanning three centuries. These were salvaged early utilitarian material, sections of bedsheets and old sacs, peasant cuts, and farming cuts, some with old repairs and patches. Once assembled, these cloth swathes were dyed using indigo from India, the US, and Japan, using traditional dyeing techniques. Indigo, the world's oldest and most iconic dye, adorning the ancient Egyptians to today’s American blue jean-wearing workers, holds special meaning to Clarke & Reilly.

Traveling from the artist's studio in Somerset, England, to Northern California, the panels were left untended and exposed to the elements, from the heat of the California sun to wet marshes and gullies. Each piece amassed the resilient marks of survival - a journey not unlike that forged by the immigrants of the Garment District in Downtown Los Angeles. This community has recently become a particular point of fixation for the artists.

“We don’t respect those sorts of artisans anymore; we don’t see the backbreaking work it takes to create goods; it's all conducted behind closed doors. This body of work is a reaction to the invisibility of these people - we might give them hi - vis gear but they are ultimately unseen.” – David Grocott, one-half of Clarke and Reilly.

As in much of Clarke & Reilly’s output, aural atmosphere will play a vital role in the upcoming installation. The spatial experience will be infused with sound by composer Magnus Fiennes. Inspired by and combining found sounds, junkyard percussion, colliery brass bands, Americana period musical instruments, snippets of spoken and sung words, and poetry, Fiennes' "Worker’s Opera" evokes the physically grueling conditions of historic garment sweatshops.

Blue Collar will be on view at SIZED STUDIO (526 N Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90004) from Thursday, October 26th through Saturday, November 4th, 2023. There will be an opening event on the evening of Thursday, October 26th, and media are invited to view the work on the morning of Wednesday, October 25th.

About Clarke and Reilly

Clarke and Reilly, otherwise known as David Grocott and Bridget Dwyer, have been collaborating since 2005. A partnership that defies simple categorization, they curate and create spaces and environments: Grocott, an artist with reactivated furniture and objects at the heart of his work; Dwyer, his creative accomplice, an integral part of the discourse and the driving force behind how and where the pieces should be seen.

Their works are in collections worldwide. Previous projects include AD2021, Los Angeles; 8 Chairs, London & Vienna; and The White Room, Hong Kong. They currently live in the UK.