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4/7/2002

Oreet Ashery

Foxy Productions, New York

Seven Acts of Love

Foxy Productions presents the first New York exhibition of Jerusalem-born, London-based artist, Oreet Ashery. Seven Acts of Love documents the exploits of her alter ego Marcus Fisher in photography and video. Ashery also presents her latest video, a personal snapshot of contemporary Israel. Her New York debut follows a series of acclaimed shows this year at the Still and Bruch Gallery, Berlin, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, and Home, London.

Oreet Ashery's alter ego Marcus Fisher is identifiably Orthodox Jewish. He passes for male in most situations, appears transgendered in some, and is liable to shape shift in front of the camera or to a nightclub audience. Seven Acts of Love explores the interplay between cultural heritage, visceral desire and anxiety while drawing attention to the artist's role as both investigator and commodifier.

In the video, Marcus Fisher's Wake, 2000, and the photographic series, Self Portraits of Marcus Fisher 1-5, 2000, Ashery constructs performative documents of Marcus Fisher's 'voyage of self discovery'. The video documents his homecoming visits to Hassidic areas of Jerusalem where he tests his cover, and his adventurous excursions to London gay clubs and all-male Turkish cafes in Berlin. Ashery's photographic portraits present Marcus's endless self-reflexive exploration. What is it Like for You, 2000, a pop video starring Marcus as an art student, documents his desperate attempt to make it as a Post-modern fashion consumable. Marcus is often an allusive character, rarely in direct contact with people, but in Say Cheese, 2001-02, Marcus invites participants to share his bed, facilitating unexpected intimacies, sometimes physical, sometimes psychological.

In Ashery's latest video, Why Do You Think I Left?, 2002, she poses that very question to her family members in Israel. Ashery holds her tongue, facilitating a struggle between the personal and political in relation to immigration, emigration and "home".

"Troubling, tentative and unsupervised, are the explorations of Oreet Ashery, a Jewish female performance artist who disguises herself as Marcus Fisher, a male orthodox Jew and penetrates Orthodox Jewish communities and other milieu in that persona. The cutting edge of such work today, the agenda that biography needs to address, is the phenomenon of the stalker."
Fred Vermorel, The Village Voice

"One can only guess at the degree of transgression that her impersonation involves but since, as a religion, Judaism seems such a male affair her actions must be deeply heretical as well as obscene."
Sarah Kent, Time Out, London

Image: Oreet Ashery, Self Portrait as M F

Opening reception: Friday, July 5, 6.00 to 9.00 pm

Friday-Sunday 12.00 to 6.00 pm and by appointment

Foxy Productions is a project space for contemporary art that provides a focus for inter-disciplinary practices, interactive situations and collaborative ventures. Foxy Productions is directed by Michael Gillespie and John Thomson.

Next exhibition - opening July 26, 2002: Phil Collins, Jeroen Kooijmans, David Noonan and Constanze Schweiger.

Foxy Productions
129 Bedford Avenue, #1, (between N9 and 10th St.)
Brooklyn NY 11211 (Subway: L to Bedford Avenue)
Tel: 718.218.9016

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