Machine Dazzle has spent more than thirty years turning discarded objects into costumes that read like portraits of their era — and the full scope of that work arrives at MASS MoCA on December 19. Changes — The Costume Design for Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music gathers the wearable sculptures he created for Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated 24-hour performance piece, twenty-four garments spanning every decade of American history since 1776. The exhibition runs through March 2027.
About the Show
Each piece was built through what Machine Dazzle calls a “glitter to litter” methodology: cast-off and discarded materials transformed into elaborate constructions that reference the political movements, social histories, and inventions of their respective eras. Taylor Mac’s underlying performance examines the nation’s narrative through a queer lens, described as giving voice “to the marginalized communities often left out of mainstream historical narratives.” The costumes carry all of that.
Machine Dazzle (born Matthew Flower, based in New York since 1994) has been collaborating with Taylor Mac since 2009. “Taylor doesn’t tell me what to do,” he has said. “Taylor is reinventing what theater can be, and that’s what I want to be a part of.” Critic Hilton Als put it differently: where most costume designers work in a realistic tradition, Machine Dazzle’s approach is “an emotional one.”
The recognition around this body of work is substantial. He won the 2024 Emmy Award for Outstanding Costume Design for the HBO documentary adaptation of Taylor Mac’s production, directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein; it premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2023. Earlier awards include the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design (co-recipient), the Henry Hewes Design Award from The American Theatre Wing, and the TDF/Irene Sharaff Ascending Artist Award. A Rizzoli monograph, Queer Maximalism X Machine Dazzle, documents the larger body of work. The MASS MoCA exhibition is co-presented by the museum, Pomegranate Arts, and Wrightwood 659.
Venue & Logistics
The exhibition is housed in gallery B6.2 at MASS MoCA, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. The museum’s multi-venue setup means there is plenty to take in beyond the Machine Dazzle installation. From the Capital Region, North Adams is a drive worth building a full day around.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. For admission details and gallery hours, check the MASS MoCA event listing. Buy tickets