8/1/2001
See Through
PBICA, Lake Worth, FL
Video art by Hannah Wilke, Karen Finley and Alix Pearlstein. "See Through" was curated by Galen Joseph-Hunter in cooperation with Electronic Arts Intermix of New York. The works of "See Through," the second New Media Lounge series at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, span three decades of creativity by these well-known performance artists. The videos explore popular notions of beauty and gender with both a critical and humorous slant.
The Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (PBICA) announces the opening of their next exhibit in the New Media Lounge.
"See Through" presents video art by Hannah Wilke, Karen Finley and Alix Pearlstein. "See Through" was curated by Galen Joseph-Hunter in cooperation with Electronic Arts Intermix of New York.
The works of "See Through," the second New Media Lounge series at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, span three decades of creativity by these well-known performance artists. The videos explore popular notions of beauty and gender with both a critical and humorous slant.
"This grouping of artists shows the strong connections between 70s performance art and current work among young artists, especially women," says PBICA Director Michael Rush. "The influence of Hannah Wilke in particular is evident among a broad spectrum of artists working internationally including, not only Finley and Pearlstein, but also Pipilotti Rist and Sam Taylor-Wood, among many others."
Hannah Wilke produced work from the 1970s until her death from breast cancer in 1993. Her work examines sexuality, femininity and the body. Working in sculpture, painting, performance, video and photography, Wilke often used her own body as a means of confronting the erotic representation of the female body in art history and popular culture. Wilke's work reached dramatic heights in the early 1990s with a stark, moving series of photographs of her face and body during her struggle with cancer.
"Gestures," created by Wilke in 1974, is a series of performance-based works of extreme camera close-ups, in which Wilke performs repetitive actions. At times, she manipulates and pulls her skin as if it were sculptural material.
Often her gestures -- rubbing her hands over her face, smiling so hard that she appears to be grimacing, sticking out her tongue -- take on a weighted significance when seen in the context of gender performance.
"Hello Boys," documents a 1975 performance by Wilke at the Gallery Gerald Piltzer in Paris. Seen through the glass of a large fish tank, Wilke, nude, performs a series of studied erotic gestures accompanied by rock music. Entrapped in her fish bowl, on display behind glass, she is both subject and object. Suggesting the figure of a mermaid, with its ambiguous implications of sexual power and powerlessness, Wilke explores the representation of female sexuality and male attention.
"Through the Large Glass," from 1976, documents one of Wilke's most effective and well-known performances of a deadpan striptease as seen through the glass of Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Dressed in a fedora and a white suit, and evoking the style of 1970s fashion icons, such as Helmut Newton and Yves Saint-Laurent, Wilke strikes a series of poses and then strips in a self-conscious presentation of the often unrealistic posturing of a fashion model.
As a performer and provocateur, artist Karen Finley challenges audiences with her theater of sexuality and rage. Like Wilke, her cathartic performances confront the politics of sexuality and the female body in contemporary culture.
"The Constant State of Desire," from 1989, is Finley's first major work addressing the body and the male gaze. The work includes monologues on the abuse of power through sex, parental restrictions and cruelty, as well as a ceremony in which Finley coats her body in egg, stuffed animals and glitter. This performance premiered at The Kitchen in 1986 and toured Europe and America. It received a Bessie Award for performance.
Alix Pearlstein uses everyday objects, pop cultural artifacts and art historical references to create a narrative satire characterized by deadpan humor. Her approach is direct and intimate. Her videotapes engage in wry, self-conscious presentations of style icons, gender and the media. Pearlstein's earliest tapes exhibit a deliberately low-tech, grunge sensibility that is countered by the cool, stylized elegance of her more recent works. Throughout her work, Pearlstein appears as the performer, adopting postures and role-playing to tweak the images and codes that signify female identity in a media-based culture.
A white cat, an artist/florist and the Energizer bunny are among the various characters who inhabit her video, "Interiors" from 1996, a loop of six scenes based on a series of drawings. Like animated pictures, each depicts an interior landscape that changes as the residents work and play and dress and undress in their settings. A baton is passed from one scene to the next, like an inheritance or hand-me-down -- linking these narrative moments like rooms in a house whose owner keeps redecorating.
"Pause," from 1997, presents a series of pictures that chronicle a solo performance through posture, position, gesture, expression and exclamation. The concise gestures and poses suggest a series of gender-based scenarios, images and identities, which refer to photography as a source. Intensified by minimal sound effects, these actions reveal clues for the viewer as to the meaning of the performer's movements.
"Partners," produced in 1998, continues and extends Pearlstein¹s investigation into the role of the still picture in time-based media, by literally juxtaposing a live action figure with a paper cutout. These two dimensional people act as surrogate performance partners, presenting a wide range of identities, with whom Pearlstein interacts, reacts to and mirrors in a series of attempts to connect with this other being in a physical, psychological and emotional quest.
The New Media Lounge is located on the second level of the PBICA facility in Lake Worth. With three video monitors and a planned installation of two new computers for viewing web art, the New Media Lounge features a rotating series of media art from internationally renowned, as well as emerging artists. The New Media Lounge is open for visitors throughout the year, even during times when the main floor exhibition area is closed for installations of new shows. Some material in the New Media Lounge may be suitable only for adults.
PBICA is located at 601 Lake Avenue in Lake Worth, Fla. Museum hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 12-6 p.m., and the first and third Fridays from 12 p.m.-8 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for seniors and students, children under 12 are free. Free admission is offered every first Friday of the month. For more information, call the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art at 561-582-0006.
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