Susan Cianciolo, fundamental figure of the New York creative scene: "I am from a generation that grew up reusing the things I found",

Some messy chairs in the Cibrián gallery in San Sebastián are the testimony of a meditation session with which the artist Susan Cianciolo (Rhode Island, 53 years old) opened her first exhibition in Spain,

(This exhibition is made for a new dawn, a new earth and a new solar system)

and that, by his express wish, will remain as a record of this collective ceremony until the end of the exhibition.

Surrounded by his most recent work and dressed in different pieces specially made by Cianciolo, called

, the participants arranged themselves in a circle, a constant pattern in his work, and listened to his instructions as a spiritual guide.

“When I work, I somehow feel like I'm meditating, a sense of peace comes over me.

It is almost as if I could no longer live without this symbiosis…”.

Her trajectory is a kind of internal transit that has led her to express herself through fashion, cinema or art, and to rise up as one of the most radical figures in the New York creative scene of the last 30 years.

The good jacket kit (2014-2022) is one of the works by Susan Cianciolo that can be seen at Cibrián Gallery (Jose Maria Soroa Kalea, 12. San Sebastián) Until December 30. Antonio Macarro

After graduating from Parsons School in New York in 1992, Cianciolo worked for classic American fashion firms such as Geoffrey Beene (under the orders of Alber Elbaz) and Badgley Mischka.

He's also collaborated with cult names like X-Girl, founded by Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, and designed window displays for luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.

In 1995, the designer created her own label, the Run Collection, which would redefine cutting-edge fashion in the city.

“I named it the Run Collection because I was in my early 20s and felt fearless and invincible.

I wanted to run away from everything that existed, to be subversive, to go against the system”.

Her work as a designer was collaborative and incorporated techniques such as reuse or customization, which at that time were directly opposed to the canons of conventional luxury.

It was precisely at the height of her career as a designer that Cianciolo hit the limits of the fashion system.

“I realized that I was trying to break certain rules, but I couldn't because I was stuck in the season system, which was getting faster and preventing me from thinking clearly about more interesting ideas,” she says.

In 2001, the artist decided to close her brand to focus on freer projects, such as the self-publishing of fanzines or

, which at that time were still called guerrilla stores.

On several occasions he tried to resume his work creating fashion, but everything had changed because of rapid consumption.

“I remember I did a collection and had a few orders, but I was in the studio doing the screen printing and graphics on all these t-shirts that I made by hand and I always had to have a ruler next to me: if I deviated by half an inch, the buyer wouldn't accept it. the garment.

He had settled an idea of ​​the more regular and industrial finishes.

I didn't want to leave it, but I had to accept it.

I told myself that at least I had given the best of myself”.

Her path led her into the world of art: in 2014 she met the influential gallery owner Bridget Donahue, who helped define her career through exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as MoMA,

'Broadcasting Frequency Recordings' (1996-2022) is a mixed media work that takes the shape of a sun lounger. Antonio Macarro

The 32 works that make up his new exhibition in Spain have been produced this year, during a long period of isolation in nature.

“I have a good friend, a long-time collector of my work, who has a house in upstate New York.

She gave me a set of keys because she and her husband were not going to be there and she allowed me to stay as long as she needed.

It's a very modern space from which you can hear the sound of the Hudson River... Before I used to go for shorter periods, but this time I've been there for almost two months.

It sounds silly, but I got to a point where I really felt like I was merging with nature and crossing into that other dimension.

It's a similar feeling to when I meditate."

Cianciolo's spiritual theories and artistic techniques converge in his

or sensory records.

The exhibition includes drawings, paintings and collages for which he has used everything from vintage pieces of his brand to fragments of fabrics that his mother, Donna Dipetrillo, cut out by hand in the 1970s.

There are boxes with found objects, a film and even hammocks.

“The elements that make up my work have to do with what I have around me, what friends or my daughter, Lilac Sky, give me.

I am from a generation that grew up reusing the things she found.”

Everything comes together in an experience where both art and healing practices weigh.

“I trust the unknown because we never know what tomorrow holds.

It's something amazing.

You know, you don't have to know all the answers."

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