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You are here: Home / LACE / 1995-1999 / The Untitled Thumb and Drape Project

The Untitled Thumb and Drape Project

May 1 – June 26, 1999

In her work Michelle Lopez uses traditional materials in unconventional ways to transform mundane objects into evocative, corporeal forms. The media Lopez carefully chooses draw the viewer into the objects because they engage senses of both sight and smell, and invite touch. The objects she uses as points of departure — boats, cars, trucks — share functions based on transportation, mobility, security, freedom. In this show, Lopez continued her previous use of leather and introduced her innovative exploration of marzipan, another material that, like leather, takes on a flesh-like aspect in the context of her work.

In collaboration with Sarah Bernbach, pastry chef and co-owner of “Cake,” a wedding-cake specialty firm in New York, Lopez created a funerary spectacle of a canoe — with its human scale and evocations of serenity — covered with bursting, larger-than-life wilted flowers, ivy, and butterflies, all made of marzipan. The sugary sweet, wilting floral transformation cast a deathlike aura on the canoe’s empty skeletal frame, creating a magical meditation on memory and the body.

In her leather construction, Lopez substantially increased the scale of her earlier investigations into traditional practices of hand tooled-leather design by wrapping an automobile in hides, making visible the vehicle’s arrested action. Using buffalo skins as raw material, she applied a modified process of scribing, where lines are cut with blades, rubbed with dental tools, and beaten from behind so that the images swell. Lopez confined the images to a small area on the skin, in order to heighten the notion of imagery as wound. The result is a densely-layered hieroglyph on a large field of leather — a kind of perverse landscape inscribed with a mutated tale. Like practices of ritual scarification, this artwork exists as lesions or welts, as bruised images on flesh.

In earlier artworks made of leather, such as Pled (1997) and Snuff (1998), Lopez’s stories start with pictures of beds or sofas — what the artist refers to as “domestic places of surrender.” She follows those with layers of familiar cartoon characters and logo patterns. Her interest is in how common iconography intensely toppled onto each other are abstracted, yet retain a sense of familiarity. In her work Michelle Lopez creates each story within a quiet perversion of violence, embedding memory within a surface, distilling an uncanny form that never quite reaches recognition.

Michelle Lopez received her B.A. in literature and art history in 1992 at Barnard College, and she received her M.F.A in 1994 at the School of Visual Arts. She has been exhibiting since 1996 in various groups shows and has had solo exhibitions at Feature Inc. and Deitch Projects, both in New York. Lopez was a recipient of the MacDowell Colony Fellowship.

Flyer available here

Lopez funerary spectacle of a canoe

Artist: Michelle Lopez Title: BOY Year: 1999 Media: Leather, glue, steel, Honda 600 frame (1971) found in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Dimensions: 15’ x 4.5’ x 5’ Provenance:  Collection of Diane & David Walman, CA “Greater New York” at MoMA/PS1, 2000 “Untitled Thumb and Drape Project” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), 1999

Filed Under: 1995-1999, Exhibition, LACE Tagged With: 1999, Exhibition, Michelle Lopez, Sarah Bernbach, Sculpture, The Untitled Thumb and Drape Project

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You can now watch all the performances from "ENDUR You can now watch all the performances from "ENDURANCE" on the LACE website as part of our digital archive! 

"ENDURANCE" presented performance art and interdisciplinary work by elder artists. These artists use their practices to share wisdom, knowledge, and experiences that they have gained throughout their lives. This series is a companion program to LACE’s 2024 performance series, "ABUNDANCE," both featuring often invisibilized bodies.

This program was held at L.A. Dance Project from May 16–17, 2025.

The online presentation of "ENDURANCE" is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles (@culture_la).

Photos by Angel Origgi (@angeloriggi)

Image Captions in order:
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Sharon Kagan, "...and then this happened..." (2025)
Anna Homler, Jeff Schwartz, and David Javelosa, "VOE Variations" (2025)
Awilda Sterling-Duprey, "Makandal es la consigna / Makandal Is the Call to Action" (2025)
Juanita and Juan (Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers) (2025)
Oguri, "Dance Emerges, Out of Time, with unforgettable ancestors and friends" (2025)
Gloria Enedina Álvarez accompanied by Greg Hernandez (2025)
Construction for LACE’s new home is in full swin Construction for LACE’s new home is in full swing — we’re one step closer to unveiling an exciting new chapter. Stay tuned…🚜

Slide 2 (left to right), LACE Team: Johnny Young, Ida Tongkumvong, Fiona Crary, Selene Preciado, Sarah Russin
Slide 3 (left to right), LACE Fellow & Getty Interns: Becca Choe, Camilla Caldwell, Jada Wong
On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for this year's Artists’ Film International (AFI'25) at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

This touring film program is collectively curated and presented by 16 international arts organizations and convened by Forma (@formaartsmedia). AFI’25 introduces the work of talented moving image artists to worldwide audiences, and will be live over 300 days, with exhibitions, screenings and public programs hosted across 4 continents.

LACE’s selection for AFI’25 is "Leymusoom Garden: New Sun" (2024) by Heesoo Kwon (@leymusoom). Kwon’s oneiric visual language and unique animation style allow her to create memoryscapes of personal and community liberation. The film rewrites mythical matrilineal histories through utopian and whimsical abstractions of time, space, and memory to ultimately bring forth healing and transformation. 

Admission is free! RSVP at the link in our bio.

Image caption:
Still from Heesoo Kwon, Leymusoom Garden: New Sun, 2024. Courtesy the artist
Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Saturday, July 19, 2–5 PM at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

Curated by Selene Preciado and Andrea Acuña, this film program presents a selection of video works that integrate ancestral knowledge and indigenous storytelling, imagining futures where the past and present connect through the power of ruins and resilience. Followed by a musical performance with multimedia NeoCumbia artist El Keamo (@el_keamo).

Learn more and RSVP at the link in our bio!
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