NADA House 2024

“Space Suit” a hanging sculpture installation from multidisciplinary Austrian artist, Karo Kuchar represented by Kates-Ferri Projects on view Nada House on Governors Island 2024.

As a starting point of inspiration, the artist finds abandoned buildings and apartments in her city of Vienna. Through a process using binding agents, she transfers old plaster, crumbling wall paint, dirt, wallpaper remnants, and layers of past times onto permeable fabrics. In turn, these are then sewn together with transparent fabrics, creating abstract and referential items of the world, such as hugely large bathing suits that hang loosely on copper hangers in the room. In doing so, Kuchar imbues her work with a sense of history and transformation, merging the past with the present and a sense of place in a tangible and evocative way.
On view at Nada House, an 8-ft bathing suit, titled Space Suit VIII, would be hanging from the ceiling above the staircase on the 2nd floor, allowing the attendees to view the sculpture from inside and outdoor through the window. The Space Suit consists of a paint-ladden wine-red synthetic organza fabric with pink and sink pieces and a braided cord detail sewn together. The oversized swimsuit exemplifies the blurring of the boundaries between public and private spaces. The piece is hung so that the bottom of the suit touches the floor, grounding it as a sculpture and transcending its appearance as a mere garment. This deliberate choice lends the works a sense of solidity and permanence, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions of clothing and space. Kuchar’s distinctive method highlights the space of the body, the space of the room the wall paint once came from, the space outside, and the new room it now inhabits. By collapsing those spaces into one, Kuchar invites a layered reading of her work that serves as a metaphor for the fluidity of space and identity.