12/12/2007
Karen Azoulay
Four, Dublin
From hearth to witch burning, the relationship between female and flame has intertwined, often deleteriously, since time immemorial. Fire Tale, Azoulay's latest project, reanimates several mythic collisions of the feminine and the incendiary with photographs, sculptural props, and a video installation.
Curated by Joseph R. Wolin
The history of women and fire is a fraught one. From hearth to witch burning, the relationship between female and flame has intertwined, often deleteriously, since time immemorial. Fire Tale, Karen Azoulay's latest consideration of the enduring power of symbol and archetype, reanimates several mythic collisions of the feminine and the incendiary with photographs, sculptural props, and a
video installation.
Azoulay's images recall figures such as the legendary phoenix, Cinderella, Prometheus, and the Statue of Liberty, yet Liberty's torch is papier-mâché, its fire a crown of broken orange glass; the ominous waters of New York Harbour are merely swathes of shimmering blue fabric pieced together around the whitewashed live model. Flames in other works comprise small pennants of fabric blown by a fan, their minatory quality the result of lighting and a suspension of disbelief. Azoulay creates her images from the most prosaic of materials and the most transparent of effects. Their homey charm and plainspoken theatricality seem not so unlike that of a school pageant; the video, Phoenix Rising, in fact, plays within a proscenium constructed from foam board and house paint. But Azoulay's craft (and the word is used advisedly) does nothing to diminish either the resonance or the potency of her work. It succeeds because of, rather than in spite of, the coexistence of its gr avely learned ends and its unpretentiously ingenuous means.
Karen Azoulay was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1977, and received her BFA from York University in 2000. Solo exhibitions of her work include Wading Under a Crackling Sky, curated by Glenn Ligon at CUE Art Foundation in New York (2007), and The Evening Canopy and the Sunset Hour at Mercer Union in Toronto (2006). Her installations and performances have been seen at The Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant in Toronto; White Columns in New York; the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, New York; Hanna Gallery in Tokyo; Art & Idea in Mexico City; and Galerie Kunstbuero in Vienna. She lives and works in New York City.
This exhibition is hosted in Dublin City Council
@ The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin 1
For further details please contact Lee Welch on +353 (0) 86 365 1256
Preview : 6-8pm 13 December 2007
Four
11 Burgh Quay Dublin 2, Ireland.
Opening hours Monday - Saturday 10am - 5pm