As the culmination of Cheryl Donegan’s four-month residency and exhibition at the New Museum, presented through the Department of Education and Public Engagement’s R&D Season: LEGACY, the artist will premiere “EXTRA LAYER,” a collection of outerwear commissioned by the Museum that advances her foray into fashion. Produced in cooperation with Print All Over Me and styled with accessories sourced from eBay and her own personal collection, the project extends Donegan’s exploration of the consumption and production of forms taken from mass culture, middlebrow design, and art history. The collection will nod to the deconstructed forms of visionary fashion designer Martin Margiela, particularly his humble tuxedo T-shirt.

This event is organized on the occasion of “Cheryl Donegan: Scenes + Commercials,” an exhibition and a residency organized by the Department of Education and Public Engagement as part of its R&D Season: LEGACY, in which Donegan continues her exploration of the production and consumption of images in mass culture, middlebrow design, and art history. The exhibition presents works that span Donegan’s career, from the early ’90s to the present, tracing conceptual threads that run across her practice, including her interest in the mediated image, compressed space, and the mark’s indexical relation to the body. Throughout the run of the exhibition, the Resource Center will feature a major new installation by Donegan, titled “Concept Store,” that displays garments, drawings, prints, and textiles she has produced alongside items she has sourced from websites such as eBay. In this installation and the other works in “Scenes + Commercials,” the artist engages in a process of “refashioning the readymade” by alluding to longer histories of repurposing in both art and culture.