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More than a decade ago, Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian-French post-structural theorist, published Strangers to Ourselves, a study seeking to understand the concept of the stranger not just as an outsider, but as a foreigner within each of us. Today, in 2007, the quest to understand the complexities of one’s identity still lies at the heart of much artistic production. When asked to curate a show in the windows at the Kimmel Center, I sought to use the very public nature of this venue to my advantage.
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Strangers to Ourselves – Julia Trotta
More than a decade ago, Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian-French post-structural theorist, published Strangers to Ourselves, a study seeking to understand the concept of the stranger not just as an outsider, but as a foreigner within each of us. Today, in 2007, the quest to understand the complexities of one’s identity still lies at the heart of much artistic production.
When asked to curate a show in the windows at the Kimmel Center, I sought to use the very public nature of this venue to my advantage. The work is presented to a public audience, passersby on their way to class, the office, home. Not only did I want to choose bold, eye-catching works, but more importantly, I wanted the artists to expose themselves through their windows, allowing themselves to become vulnerable to a momentary gaze.
“Strangers to Ourselves” features the work of six young New York-based women artists: Victoria Calabro, Orly Cogan, Jun Iseyama, Patricia Iglesias, Glynnis McDaris and Megan Pflug. The show presents works that directly or indirectly reflect the artist’s concerns with themselves and their own environments and, at the same time, revealing a self-consciousness that comes off as awkward, aloof, detached and even fearful.
From a distance, Patricia Iglesias’ paintings look like pristine wallpaper, the sort one would find in a lady’s powder room. However these tableaux have been soiled with a single blob of resin, an abject stain against the floral perfection. While there is a clash of textures and patterns, the colors are brilliantly balanced, the splash deftly complimenting the pattern. It is as if the blob is trying, in vain, to conform to its setting.
In her untitled sculptural installation, Victoria Calabro creates an unconventional landscape in which piles of cast pewter rocks create a spatial typography and lime green yo-yos congregate on a bed of yellow carpeting, their strings shooting into the air like moonbeams. In an age of technology, Calabro presents her own version of the great unknown as delicate, witty and detached.
Megan Pflug’s black on white, evergreen prints solicit the viewer with a noir sensibility and the occasional burst of fluorescent color. Animated figures seem to be trapped in a hypnotic world of beams and swirls. Reminiscent of something out of the “Twilight Zone,” Megan’s psychologically charged works seek to confuse and disorient the viewer, like an anxious daydream exposed for all to see.
Looking through Jun Iseyama’s windows transports the viewer to the artist’s own fantastical world. In her triptych titled Display from Good Friendly Super Natural Hell, Jun has created a mis-en-scene of sorts, with various fabrics, pelts, found objects and crocheted webs creating a suitable environment for a cast of animal-human hybrid characters. In addition, Iseyama includes two of her photographs in the multimedia mix. While the portraits depict dolls with slashed mouths, bodies contorted and eyes vacant, there is something utterly serene about their expressions. The photographs anchor the installation, with the dolls serving as gatekeepers to the perverse world she has created.
Orly Cogan embellishes found vintage textiles with hand-stitched embroidery, primarily creating nude self-portraits. As such, her works literally explore the artist’s relationship with herself. Fully developed nudes are accessorized with children’s toys and costumes, displaying a complex tension between innocence and experience. The images are awkward and trigger a series of reactions varying from excitement, embarrassment, disgust, laughter or all of the above.
Glynnis McDaris, a photographer known for her atmospheric photographs of unstaged moments, elegantly captures scenes of isolation and introspection in her works Long Ago and Far Away and Dry Dock. Her seductive, chiaroscuro style lures the viewer to the image, elevating everyday scenes to dramatic compositions. In Long Ago and Far Away, McDaris presents a window from a low angle, as if one is in bed looking up at the soft glow of morning light. A toy sword leans on the window ledge in silhouette like a discarded cross.
