19/2/2014
Nancy Burson
ClampArt, New York
Composites. Digitally combining and manipulating images of often well-known individuals, including movie stars and world leaders, Burson examines political issues, gender, race, and standards of beauty.
ClampArt is pleased to announce “Nancy Burson: Composites”—the gallery’s second solo exhibition of the
artist’s work.
Since the inception of her career as an artist, Nancy Burson has been interested in the interaction of art
and science. In collaboration with
researchers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Burson began to
produce computer-generated composite
portraits in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
The work was informed by centuries of
social, scientific, and pseudo-scientific
study of the human face.
However,
Burson’s attitude toward science was
always laced with irony and a keen
awareness of the absurdities embedded in
many historic concepts, such as race and
gender, which we take for granted today.
“Composites” explores Burson’s
pioneering early work with digital
technologies—now ubiquitous in
photography. Digitally combining and
manipulating images of often well-known
individuals, including movie stars and
world leaders, Burson examines political issues, gender, race, and standards of beauty. In other
photographs, Burson creates playful, but unnerving, simulacra of subjects that could never exist in the
real world that the medium has traditionally indexed.
Nancy Burson’s work is shown in museums and galleries worldwide, and has been included in major
exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York City; the International Center of Photography, New York City; New Museum, New York City; Venice
Biennale, Venice; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography,
Chicago. “Seeing and Believing,” Burson’s traveling retrospective which originated at the Grey Art Gallery
at New York University in New York City in 2002, was nominated for Best Solo Show of the Year in New
York City by the International Association of Art Critics.
Image: © Nancy Burson, “Aged Barbie,” 1994, Polaroid, 4.25 x 4.5 inches (sheet).
Opening reception: Thursday, February 20, 2014 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
ClampArt
531 West 25th Street 646 New York
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Admission free