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Email PageCan You Hear Me Too
April 8, 2006- May 13, 2006
Reception: April 8, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Nathan Ritterpusch
Rare
521 W 26th StMusic and sensuality are the keys to self-discovery in Nathan Ritterpusch’s one-person exhibition, Can You Hear Me Too, at RARE from April 8 through May 13, 2006. Employing framing techniques and visual cues reminiscent of suspense films from the early seventies, Ritterpusch simultaneously positions the viewer as voyeur and protagonist in his non-linear narrative of confinement and longing.
In Where Is the Madness That You Promised Me (2005), the comfort of a plush pink living room provides the setting for an alluring blond female who is the protagonist in this series of paintings and drawings. She sits hands to temples, either finding peace from or being disturbed by the music coming from the portable record player at her side. Is there a physical threat just beyond the door causing her to sit in trepidation or is the music inducing a trance-like reaction? In the safety of her suburban home, this woman appears ready to be whisked away from her sheltered life. Playing a workout record backwards, she wills a transformative experience from the mumbling she hears. Like the masters of cinema, Ritterpusch leaves just enough unseen to keep the questions coming.
Placing his heroine in a similar pose in To Build a Place for You and Me (2006), the artist surrounds her with manifestations of an Eden-like setting. A satyr sits with his back to the viewer with lute in hand as an offer of sexual conjugation to the goddess figure above him. Trees grow out of nowhere in the middle and backgrounds. While the element of fear is somewhat subjugated as a force beyond view in Where Is the Madness That You Promised Me, here it is made manifest as a product of the protagonist’s mind.
Ritterpusch presents a dual narrative, real and imagined, in all of his work, shifting the balance sometimes more in one direction, at other times more in the other. A journey through the woods allows the viewers to project themselves onto the young woman as she stands in close-up in And Then There Was You (2005). Brushing a limb from her face with leaves surrounding and boxing her in, she is further hidden by the trees’ shadows. Yet there is resolution in her placidity, her eyes fixed on a revelation invisible to the viewer. I Believed All Her Lies/The Breadcrumbs Are Gone (2005) depicts the duality of Ritterpusch’s narrative in different proportions. The woman peers deep into the woods with many possible paths to follow. Here is the forest spooking Snow White. Whether real or imagined is not the issue -- it is real to her.
The Night Fever (2006) presents perhaps the darkest view of this lady’s adventure. An aged version of the young woman is frustrated in one corner and falling in the other. She seems to have been trapped in her exploration to recapture the innocence of discovery from long ago. The record player is once again her key to the rabbit hole. Fire and smoke obscure and transform psychedelic lights suggesting that she can attempt to recreate her youth but will never reclaim it.
In stark contrast, Visions of Her Faithlessness (2006), a culmination of the heroine’s journey, feels like a dream she has recaptured. Various versions of her fill the canvas, allowing the viewer to dissect this psychologically dense and psychedelic work. At its center, a beautifully rendered woman kneels with arched back and eyes closed in ecstasy. She has reached her portal to a transcendent world.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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