ART2102 is pleased to present Self Formations, an exhibition exploring
the notion of self through viewpoint shifts and displacements
of actuality. Bringing together the work of three artists –
New York based Carter, and Andy Alexander and Kerry Tribe both
from Los Angeles – Self Formations showcases various strategies
used to understand what constitutes the self. These approaches
are anchored in a space between body identification, language
and the shaping of personality, and attempt to find clues in the
world of perception that exists between oneself and others. Moving
away from an understanding of identity that is based on a scientific
model, a type of addition of biological and socio-economic factors,
the work in this exhibition favors methodologies of an empirical
nature, often relying on trial and error. Substituting one’s
critical knowledge for other people’s perceptions, we are
here invited to fragment, sometimes escape from an everyday reality
in order to better grasp who we are.
In Double, a multifaceted self-portrait, Kerry Tribe leaves the
burden of defining herself to five different people. Shot in documentary
style, Double showcases women who share a certain physical likeness,
a place of birth in the East Coast and a career in video art in
Los Angeles. These women however turn out to be actresses who
answered a casting call placed by Tribe to play the role of the
artist herself. In this detached self-portrait, Tribe lets strangers
define who she is after only a short interview with them. Beyond
the physical similarities and the biographical information they
could gather, the actresses essentially act out their perception
of Tribe, her mannerisms, her diction, her insecurities. What
is further revealed here is the cognitive space between the participants
of this experiment, as Tribe has left as much room for what it
is to be an actor as for what is perceived to be an artist.
Andy Alexander finds in Science-Fiction a futuristic, fantasy-driven
reality that offers a displaced perspective on the present. As
such, epic stories like Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series were
the parallel universe that Alexander inhabited for a significant
period of his life. In a series of Minimalist sculptures, Alexander
used the Sci-Fi novels that had occupied him for months, and inter-sliced
them with clear Plexi blocks, which formally expand the physicality
of the books, while they simultaneously create and fill a void
between each tome, acting as remnants of the real world, or a
manifestation of the time that paced the reading of each novel.
In a series of pen and ink drawings, Carter uses two generic,
abstracted silhouettes which he brings to life by layering on
them attributes such as hair locks, noses, eyes. Inspired by old
barbershop graphics, the figures often bear fine facial hair features.
The multiplicity of any one detail collaged over the portraits,
such as a number of noses stacked up on each other, suggests the
necessity to define the subject in a multifaceted manner. This
strange and fragmented puzzle is reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein’s
creation. Here again, the method used is one of trial and error,
where the portrait is constantly in flux and the gesture of finding
the right representation is part of the identity of the subject.
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