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February 16, 2006 - March 25, 2006
Orly Genger, Jane Hammond, Suzanne McClelland, Sophia Petrides, Laurie Simmons, Erica Svec, Whitney Van Nes
Larissa Goldston Gallery
530 W 25th St
Inspired by the feminine sensitivity revealed in Rauschenberg’ s Bed combine, McClelland’s abstract painting, Real Princess, relates to the story of “The Princess and the Pea”. Whimsical dripped lines form words that infer the wishes of the Queen and anticipate the innate sensitivity of the Princess. Van Nes’ modern portrait, Dressing, on the other hand, was inspired by a Memling painting, and depicts a proper older woman repressing her inner sexuality.
Hammond, Petrides and Simmons have all deconstructed and re-assembled existing photographs and objects, resulting in final images that reflect new fictions made from facts. Hammond’s photographs re-contextualize found images to explore a variety of ways in which female sexuality is interpreted, from Marilyn Monroe, to her self-portrait, to photography as a vehicle for sexuality (pornography). Simmons’ photographs, already well known for inverting the idea of the photo as reality, here abandon the desexualized and sanitized images of dolls in perfect domestic maquettes by specifically re-sexualizing her female subjects, giving them a new and even disturbing power over the viewer despite the obvious inauthenticity of the images. In Paskal Your Mirror 2, Petrides creates an atmosphere of isolation, anticipation and sexual tension, portraying a partially clothed woman standing on a mattress.
The only two works in the exhibition to directly reference a male figure are Genger’s On Top, and Svec’s Children, Chairs, Tables, Hangers, Housewares. Genger’s hand crocheted and layered sculpture suggests an extreme example of a woman’s quest for equality resulting in a total reversal of the typical relationship imbalance, with the man (in this case her boyfriend) laying under the sculpture, completely overwhelmed and on the verge of suffocation. Deriving from a news article on the underground international child sex trade and a fashion spread using underage female models, Svec’s diptych depicts an interior suggestive of a male super-hero figure appearing as protector on one side and a predator on the other.
North Room
As the painting Bed was the inspiration for the above exhibition, the north room is dedicated to prints by Robert Rauschenberg, all which reference women.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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