Black & White Gallery/Project Space, Brooklyn, NY is very
pleased to host Basic Instinct – a group exhibition by
five female artists reflecting on the trajectory of gender-specific issues
from cross-generational and diverse social and cultural contexts. Deftly
curated, Basic Instinct, is an intimate experience – in large
part due to the intensely personal and arcane nature of the works that both
celebrate and challenge the notions of feminine gender identities traditionally
associated with motherhood, sexuality, romance and body image.
Colette, a pioneering
artist and persona of downtown New York will have several seminal works on view,
together offering a selective survey of her contribution to two significant
areas of contemporary art: the creation of a total environment and the use of
the artist’s own body as an instrument of expression.
New York-based Guatemalan artist
Jessica Lagunas will present her video-performance series featuring three
beauty routines of embellishment incorporated in women’s daily lives in
such a way that they hardly notice or question them. Each video is a beauty
ritual performed by the artist where she applies nail polish, black mascara and
red lipstick. The camera focuses on the part of the body where the action takes
place: with repetitive gestures she applies makeup continuously for one hour,
documenting these mundane activities and their compelling power of
transformation.
New York-based Japanese
artist Natsu
has created a site-responsive installation Cradle
– Island Universe that fills the outdoor gallery space dramatically
interlacing vibrantly colored strings of beads suspended in the form evocative
of a breast or cradle. Visitors can move through and around the work that
sparkles as the beads reflect natural light, creating a luminous effect
amplified by the austere industrial space. The milky-circle bead sculpture is
hanging in the air to embrace the universe as its birthplace – nest
– cocoon.
Texas-based artist
Alicia Ross explores the mechanism of the consensual production of symbolic
values. She passionately tackles difficult subject matter and taboos within
society and presents them as naked truth. The works’ often provocative
appearances highlight the artist's ongoing exploration of ideas surrounding
conflicting views of feminine identity in the contemporary society and the
ubiquitous virtuous/voracious societal impulses towards the female form. Ross
appropriates images from online media sources and digitally translates them into
cross-stitched constructions, using the sewing machine as a drawing tool. The
finished pieces reflect a fusion between hand-made traditions and digital
aesthetics.
Brooklyn-based Vadis
Turner has designed and constructed an environment using ten separate mixed
media pieces from the artist’s collection of contemporary heirlooms that
will comprise her dowry, all arranged as a female body spread on a table top.
Each piece is made with discarded and broken jewelry reminiscent of ceremonial
adornments used in rites of passage. Each piece is an enlarged replica of the
artist’s internal organs and major bones. Their worth can be measured in
reference to money, beauty, and the body. Visitors can walk around the work,
absorbing it as a sculpture or enjoy each individual piece. Turner's intimately
scaled, deeply felt objects—in her signature sensual, handmade
style—exist along the lines of how women of her generation craft their
identities and measure their own worth and
value.
Image: Colette,
Colette As Living Doll In Her Living Environment, c-print, 8x4 ft, 1978
For more information and to request images, please contact
the gallery:
info@blackandwhiteartgallery.com
Print Press Release
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