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23/5/2007

Amy Adler

The Apartment, Athens

The Lesson

The Apartment is pleased to announce the beginning of its collaboration with American artist Amy Adler with an exhibition of new works titled 'The Lesson'.

Amy Adler's work examines notions of authorship through a conceptual negotiation of both 'drawing' and 'photograph' and through the questioning of the relationship of artist, subject and viewer. For a number of years, Adler has been setting up 'situations' that she would capture with her camera, then make drawings out of the photographs, and ultimately photograph the drawings. The drawings would then turn into one unique photographic work, following the destruction of the original negatives and drawings. During the last few years the artist has moved away from the photograph as the end result of her practice and has been exhibiting works on canvas. The working method remains the same, only this time the procedure is reversed. 'Adler is literally pushing against her materials, asking canvas and pastel to function in a way contrary to their design. But, this is exactly her intention - a subversion of the essential nature of her media."

(Rachel Teagle, curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, 2007)

Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, author of Adler's monograph, writes how Adler's 'photographic subjects, her photographic documents and her drawings can be seen as surrogates in the studio that watch and keep track of her, but that can also be made subject to her complete control (..)Such control mechanisms seem to anticipate vulnerability and aim to recapture the authority relinquished through desire, through interpersonal relationships and through exposure to the public with its conventions and institutions'.

It is this enactment of identity, both the artist's own as well as that of a public figure - a frequent subject in Adler's work- that is central in understanding Adler's complete project. Her series ' Amy Adler photographs Leonardo Di Caprio' is evidence to an inherent tension between anonymity, identity and performativity, while 'Young Photographer' can be read as a 'self- portrait'.

Her new series 'The Lesson' (all works 2007) takes inspiration from amateur chess players. The source material is again photographic and continues Adler's exploration of the medium's possibilities as well as the role and function of (self) portraiture. The four large paintings that comprise her Athens show depict a mother playing chess with her daughter, bringing out the inherent tension and antagonism in the mother- daughter relationship as well as issues of gender and identity formation.

Amy Adler has recently held solo museum exhibitions at the Aspen Museum of Art, Aspen, Colorado (2007) and The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2006-7). Past museum solo exhibitions include Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2002), Photographer's Gallery, London (2001) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999). Her work is internationally collected; public collections include The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Broad Foundation, Santa Monica, The Saatchi Collection, London, the Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece and others.

The Apartment
21, Voulis St, 105 63, Athens, Greece
Gallery open to the public:
Thursday through Saturday, 11:00-19:00

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