UNIQUE & CURATED EXHIBITIONS

THE FITZ GALLERY

The Fitz Gallery, located on the second floor of the Inn, is a haven for artists. With the freedom to paint the walls any color of their choosing to access to our guest rooms for residencies, the artists we invite are given the space to dream, design, create, and explore their artistic visions without limitation.

CURRENTLY ON DISPLAY:

Surfacing

Machine Dazzle Exhibit

A man with curly hair, glasses, and a patterned shirt holding a wine glass stands in front of a colorful, textured art wall with paper flowers and various illustrations.
“My intention is to give motion to stillness and stories to lost characters.”
— Machine Dazzle

Somewhere between discovery and invention, Surfacing is an exercise in up-cycling, dreaming new life into old objectives.Using the archives of The Red Lion Inn, I deconstruct, repurpose, revise, and juxtapose diverse materials, including but not limited to paintings, prints, frames, décor, furniture, wallpaper, and bric-a-brac. As an artist, I’m Interested in blurring the lines and provoking curiosity. The result is a dynamic re-representation of objects that speaks to the past, present, and future of the historic Red Lion Inn. 

A man sitting in a wooden chair in a room filled with paintings and art supplies, wearing glasses, a mustard beanie, a plaid shirt, and painter's overalls, with a background of a cluttered table and framed artwork.
Person in a plaid shirt and dark hat pointing at a glittery, diamond-studded framed artwork on a wall.
People in an art gallery hallway with colorful artwork on the walls, some seated and others engaging in conversation.
Wall decorated with vintage posters, flowers, and classic cars. The posters feature black and white images of a woman, a man, and cars, with some background elements like stars and cityscapes. The flowers are in various colors and styles, with some having metallic centers.
Group of people socializing at an art gallery or exhibition, with paintings and fabric art pieces displayed on the wall.

Who is Machine Dazzle?

Beloved downtown bon vivant and all-around creative provocateur Machine Dazzle has been dazzling stages via costumes, sets, and performance since his arrival in New York in 1994. An artist, costume designer, set designer, singer/songwriter, art director, and maker, Machine describes himself as a radical queer emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker trapped in the role of costume designer, sometimes.

Machine designs intricate, unconventional wearable art pieces and bespoke installations. As a stage designer, Machine has collaborated with artists from the New York downtown scene and beyond – including Julie Atlas Muz, Big Art Group, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, Basil Twist, Godfrey Reggio, Jennifer Miller, The Dazzle dancers, Big Art Group, Mike Albo, Stanley Love, Soomi Kim, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Opera Philadelphia, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, the Curran Theatre, and Spiegelworld; and has created bespoke looks for fashion icons including designer Diane von Furstenberg and model Cara Delevingne for the 2019 Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala.

A man in a white suit and glasses holding a large, fluffy, light-colored object above his head.

Machine’s costumes and sets were featured in Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. For these designs, Machine was the co-recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design and was awarded a Henry Hewes Design Award by The American Theatre Wing. The original stage production has been adapted into an HBO Original Documentary Film directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein and co-produced by Pomegranate Arts. Photographs of Taylor Mac wearing an iteration of each of the 24 costumes created by Machine Dazzle were photographed by New York-based photographer Gregory Kramer and are currently presented by CLAMP. Machine has continued his collaboration with Taylor Mac and Matt Ray in their rock opera meditation on queerness, Bark of Millions, as both costume designer and performer.

In 2019, Machine was commissioned by Guggenheim Works and Process and The Rockefeller Brothers to create Treasure, a rock-and-roll cabaret of original songs including a fashion show inspired by the content.

Recent collaborations include the Catalyst Quartet on BasslineFabulous – a reimagining of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his debut collaboration with Opera Lafayette, for the historic premiere of the never-before-seen Rameau comedic opéra-ballet, Io.

Machine Dazzle’s work has been exhibited internationally. His first solo exhibition, Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, was held at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City in 2022 followed by Art and Intention at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. He delivered a TED Talk at TED Vancouver in 2023. Machine Dazzle’s first exhibition of sculptural works, Formalities is on video at Materials for the Arts in Long Island City, NY through January 12, 2024. Most recently, the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the U-M Stamps School of Art & Design awarded Machine the annual Roman J. Witt Residency for their 2023-2024 season. As part of his residency, UMMA and Stamps commissioned Machine’s first major museum installation: Ouroboros. Ouroboros will be on view starting March 14, 2024, following Machine Dazzle’s Penny Stamps Speaker Series lecture.  

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