 Angela Strassheim: Untitled, 2003 C-print, 30 x 40 inches Black Milk Charles Cohen, Ian Cooper, Elizabeth Gray, Molly Smith, Rachel Howe, Jasmine Kastel, Molly Larkey, Rahshia Linendoll, Tim Maxwell, McCallum, Tarry, Alex McQuilkin, Adam Pendleton, Mike Quinn, Shelly Silver, Angela Strassheim Marvelli Gallery is pleased to present "Black Milk", a group exhibition that brings together young contemporary artists whose work touches on issues related to suicide. As a heightened awareness about mental illness permeates our culture and the taboo surrounding suicide is progressively reduced, works dealing with suicide begin to appear more frequently on the art scene. Focusing on a psychological approach to the subject, the show aims to present an intimate view of this loaded issue. In the works presented there is a pervasive sense of introspection and a psychological complexity that in many cases is tangentially autobiographical. Rachel Howe's drawings expose the emotional and psychological tensions of adolescence by looking at the distance between experience and its representation in the media, which tends to objectify the life of teenagers. Shelly Silver presents "Suicide" a feature-length fiction of a woman's voyages through Asia, Europe and Central America, chronicling her fiercely hopeful and desperate search for a reason to continue living. Angela Strassheim's beautiful, hyper-realistic and disquieting group of color photographs suggests an allusive narrative that ends in suicide. In "Mood Lighting for the Room Where Dad Should Kill Himself", Mike Quinn stages an installation of a room comprised of both ready-made objects and original works, where he presents things that people do to combat and veil the pain of everyday life such as sports, drugs and religion. Adam Pendleton's ambiguously self-empowering and poetic text piece challenges the viewer to ultimately escape his destiny. Rahshia Linendoll's series of photographs "Enid” creates a repetitive and overwhelming environment within each photograph and speaks to the intimate struggle of its character faced with an obsession with her self-image. Ian Cooper's sculpture of forget-me-not wreaths enclosing phone jacks connected to tangled wires that are configured into a skull, places in the foreground issues like alienation, separation and death. Through sculptures of devices used to instrument suicide, Molly Larkey observes how danger, physical or psychological, can become sublime by placing it at a slight remove, thus making extinction itself an object for contemplation. Elizabeth Gray’s video "Cliffwalk" starring Molly Smith is beautiful, surreal and unnerving. Shot on a rocky beach front, the camera follows a woman's feet in glamorous high heels as she traverses the perilous terrain. The sound of her heels against the rock and the waves crashing below create a repetitive pattern that highlights the tension and discomfort in this ambiguous moment. Charles Cohen presents "Indicators", an uncontrollable spill of arrows pointing in every direction and functioning as metaphors for a chaotic and dysfunctional state of mind. Curator: Monica Espinel Exhibition: June 30 - July 31, 2004 Gallery hours: Tue-Sat 10 am - 6 pm. Other times by appointment. Marvelli Gallery 526 West 26th Street Second Floor USA-New York, NY 10001 Telephone +1 212 627 3363 Fax +1 212 627 3368 Email info@marvelligallery.com www.marvelligallery.com |
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