Friday, June 15, 2012-Saturday, September 15, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, June 15, 5:30 - 8:30pm

Leeza Meskin: Flossing the Lot

Flossing the Lot is a site-specific public art installation that will recycle the materials from Leeza Meksin's public art piece House Coat which took place in St. Louis in Spring 2011.  For House Coat, a quaint, two story row house on an inner-city street, Meksin designed a white gleaming fabric with large gold chains running through it to allude to the gentrification taking place in that neighborhood. The gold chains are a perfect motif to re-use at the busy corner of Crown and Chapel St., a lively, vibrant intersection, with multiple bus stations. Sassy, Foot Locker, Lids, a thrift and 99 cent stores all cluster around The Lot. The new installation will be mostly abstract, but evocatively feminine, referencing among other things, New Haven's Historic Corset Factory. The vertical spandex shapes will be weighed down with "ball and chain" elements. Sand bags, in matching and contrasting spandex cozies, will be hung strategically in places serving as pressure points to hold down the spandex banners. The gold and brightly colored "balls" will evoke the way bags are displayed in stores, as well as alluding to the more literal "ball and chain" of imprisonment. With this installation, Meksin explores how "Flossing," "Fabulousness," "Drag," and "Bling" in marginalized communities relate to the history of bondage, slavery and spiritual freedom. 

Leeza Meskin has designed public art projects in St. Louis, MO as well as at The Pine and the former Donnell New York Public Library in New York City. Meskin received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago, a B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.F.A. from the Yale University School of Art.

Flossing the Lot is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts and Project Storefront.