Machine Dazzle has been creating extraordinary costumes for over 30 years. As an artist, costume designer, set designer, and performance artist, he has presented his genre-defying work at venues ranging from Broadway to the runway, wowing audiences from Joe’s Pub to the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. As the nation marks 250 years of America’s history, MASS MoCA will showcase wearable sculptural looks by the artist that examine the 24 decades since the founding of the United States in 1776. 

Machine Dazzle created this collection for Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music — a singular 24-hour performance art concert that looks at the nation’s stories through a queer lens, giving voice to the marginalized communities often left out of mainstream historical narratives. The costumes incorporate images and objects that reference political movements, social histories, and inventions from each time period. Many of the materials in the garments are cast- offs that the artist transforms into elaborate and stunning visions that simultaneously speak to material culture. The artist describes his approach as applying “glitter to litter.”  

For his designs, Machine Dazzle was a co-recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design, a Henry Hewes Design Award by The American Theatre Wing, and the TDF/Irene Sharaff Ascending Artist Award (formerly known as the Kitty Leech Ascending Artist Award)in recognition of his success in the field of costume design. The original 24-hour stage production has been adapted into an HBO Original Documentary Film directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein and co-produced by Pomegranate Arts for which Machine Dazzle won a 2024 Emmy Award for Outstanding Costume Design.