San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
ARTIST REIGNS IN HAYES VALLEY
In August, a corner of the Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC) boutique in Hayes Valley was transformed into a combination installation/personal styling salon for fashion designer and artist Andrea Cammarosano, known to many by his Instagram persona “Ciarla” (@ciarlaforever). Piles of fabric, paper and other materials from Scrap costing tens of dollars were stacked next to designer clothes off the store’s racks costing thousands of dollars. Photographs of Cammarosano “reinterpreting” store merchandise, like faux-fur Dries Van Noten purses as hats, were paired with the items themselves.
“I make sculptures for the body,” Cammarosano said. “I make things and wear them. And I put things on my head.”
Cammarosano’s in-store project, “Clutter,” reached its fevered conclusion the evening of Aug. 29 during a viewing party where MAC perennials were able to take in the art work and meet the artist, along with some new fans who discovered his work via social media. Previous to San Francisco, “Clutter” had a showing in Milan (this installation reused materials previously constructed for that exhibition). Its next stop is Dover Street Market New York, where it will be installed as part of the Walter Van Beirendonck boutique to accompany the designer’s fall 2018 collection, also named “Clutter” and featuring prints created by Cammarosano.
Asked about his artistic process, he mused, “I would say it’s a cycle. I show an object, then I show it on the body and it becomes a performance in first person. I take a picture, then the drawings (created from the photos) are the final part you see; it’s all to make images. I want my aesthetic and my style to be very approachable and winking at pop culture and sex, but it comes from a place of protests as well.”
Some of the portraits that were on display had previously been seen as part of the artist’s “Ciarla” project, which has almost 10,000 followers on Instagram.
“The nice thing about ‘Ciarla’ on Instagram is that I started it because I felt all my creativity was going into projects,” Cammarosano said. “It then helped me reincarnate and restore my obsessions. It’s cheaper than going to the psychologist. Not all the pictures are art, but art happens when there’s a transformation of the materials.”
Brother-and-sister MAC owners Ben and Chris Ospital have known Cammarosano almost a decade.
“When you know someone’s creative work for a long time and recognize the substance of it, for us, it’s important to be a part of this,” said Ben Ospital. “Many of our customers who are coming in now for new fall clothes had a chance to watch Andrea in and out of his underwear try on clothes and handbags as hats and loved it; they got a new context for the work. We live in a moment where creativity takes us out of our doldrums and depression. Andrea’s work as a designer and as an artist makes you smile.”
Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com