YOU’VE GOT MAIL: Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy are among the bold-faced names who opened up their in-boxes for artist Miranda July’s latest project. The designers along with Kirsten Dunst, Lena Dunham, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Catherine Opie, Danh Vo and others have given the artist the go-ahead to blast e-mails copied from their out-boxes for “We Think Alone.” The way this virtual show works is that anyone can sign up on the We Think Alone site to receive 10 e-mails each Monday through Nov. 11. All of the missives were written before the project was started and were meant for other people. Commissioned by Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall for the exhibition “On the Tip of My Tongue,” July’s work is meant to be fleeting.
She sent 20 different categories to 10 friends and asked them to scavenge through their out-boxes for contributions. In a phone interview Tuesday, July said before she started the project it occurred to her, “Why create something when there is already so much ready-made material with all the e-mails out there?”
A friend of the Mulleavys for years, July actually modeled for Rodarte in 2004 and asked the designers to make the dress she wore to marry film director Mike Mills in 2009. Despite their tie, the artist was respectfully cautious about getting them involved in We Think Alone. “They are quite private. Even though I have known them for a long time, there are still huge gaps about what I know,” she said. “I felt almost rude asking them but they were so game on a friendship level.”
Rodarte fans may not be floored by what they shared with July. “Anyone who knows them will know how very ‘them’ their choices were. But people who don’t know them won’t get to know them much better. But their sense of humor really comes through,” she said.