Susan Cianciolo

Susan Cianciolo (b. 1969, Providence, RI) is a New York–based artist whose work has

shaped the overlapping histories of art, fashion, performance, and collective practice

over the past three decades. Since the beginning of her career as a fashion designer

in the mid-1990s, Cianciolo has worked across the boundaries established by her

chosen disciplines, using personal objects and archival material to produce collages,

garments, textiles, installations, publications, and performances.

In 1995, Cianciolo founded RUN, an independent clothing label and evolving artistic

structure through which she produced eleven collections of handmade, unique gar-

ments between 1995 and 2001. Presented through runway shows and other informal

settings, RUN brought clothing into dialogue with music, film, performance, and hos-

pitality. For Cianciolo, the term “collection” referred not only to the seasonal release

of garments, but to a gathering of people, skills, and shared forms of making. This

expansive, collective approach has persisted in her work, which now moves between

museums and galleries, live performances, printed publications, and workshops.

Across these contexts, Cianciolo’s work offers an alternative model of authorship, one

rooted in intimacy, material improvisation, and the social life of objects.

Recent exhibitions of Cianciolo’s work have been held at Cibrián, San Sebastián

(2025); Stuart Shave Modern Art, London (2024); Bridget Donahue, New York (2024);

Overduin & Co., Los Angeles (2023); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2023–24); the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2021–22); the Whitney Museum of American

Art, New York (2017); and MoMA PS1, New York (2015). Cianciolo’s work is held in the

public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum

of Art, New York; CCS Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson;

and the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.

Cianciolo’s work is held in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New

York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; CCS Hessel Museum of Art, Bard

College, Annandale-on-Hudson; and the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.

B.F.A., Parsons The New School for Design