home

Instagram

Healing – Rethinking Gender

Healing – Rethinking Gender: The Solari Collection and Us: History and Present

March 29 to April 27, 2024

Participants: Alejandro T. Acierto, Ari Agha, Liz Allen, Julie Anand, Andrea Benge, Liz Cohen, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Camila de Andrade Bianchi, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Mikey Foster Estes, Erika Lynne Hanson, Hilary Harp, Meredith Hoy, Gigi Marja Konecki, Adriene Jenik, Mehrdad Mirzaie Shahrestanaki, Amanda Mollindo, Richard Pence, Rebecca Ross, Lindsey Rothrock, Gregory Sale, Vivian Rae Spiegelman, Caitlyn Swift, Liza Stout, Teri Tera and Benjamin Timpson.

Co-curated with Cecilia Fajardo-Hill.


Caitlyn Swift | I Wish I Knew Her Name | 2024 | Oil on birch | Artist Statement: I was drawn to this photograph due to its problematic unidentifiable nature. Many questions drove my response to the work: Who is the woman depicted? Would she want us to display her in this way? Should she be displayed at all? I use my own body in place of the original figure within the unknown photograph as a way of processing through making and as a way of taking agency over the depiction of the nude female form. Oil painting is a slow, contemplative medium, which allowed me to spend ample time with the subject and energy of the image. In the work, I focused on amplifying traditionally non-acceptable natural bodily qualities, such as bodily functions, body hair, and imperfect skin, in hopes to make the figure a human to be contended with, rather than an object to be easily and quickly consumed for pleasure.
Caitlyn Swift | I Wish I Knew Her Name | 2024 | Oil on birch | Artist Statement: I was drawn to this photograph due to its problematic unidentifiable nature. Many questions drove my response to the work: Who is the woman depicted? Would she want us to display her in this way? Should she be displayed at all? I use my own body in place of the original figure within the unknown photograph as a way of processing through making and as a way of taking agency over the depiction of the nude female form. Oil painting is a slow, contemplative medium, which allowed me to spend ample time with the subject and energy of the image. In the work, I focused on amplifying traditionally non-acceptable natural bodily qualities, such as bodily functions, body hair, and imperfect skin, in hopes to make the figure a human to be contended with, rather than an object to be easily and quickly consumed for pleasure.
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill | selection curator | Sylvia Salazar Simpson | 1974 | selection of four black-and-white photographs artist's portfolio | Antes-Después (Before-after) | 1981 | two color photographs on accordion book | Imitations | 1977 | folded two faced artist book | Imitations | Pink Plastic Flowers | edition | 2019 | enlarged digital prints | Collection Piece | André Kertész | Colette | 1930 | gelatin silver print | George H Seeley | No. 356, From the journal | Camera Work | 1910 | Photogravure | digital reproduction print Statement: Salazar Simpson’s work collapses notions of the beautiful and alluring with the repulsive and the scatological. In Sylvia Salazar Simpson, 1970s an artist’s portfolio of nineteenth black and white photographs, the artist is photographed from behind to show headdresses fashioned with food items such as pineapples, tortillas, pig’s feet, tacos, eaten apples, corn, radishes, cheese, bananas, octopuses, and slices of cheese, to question the way beauty is conditioned through the idea of adornment. ​​Salazar Simpson is a pioneer of performative conceptual photography in 1970s LA but has remained in relative obscurity given the radicality of much of her work and her unconventional personality. The dialogue with Colette pays homage to both women’s eccentricity and creative originality, and to André Kertész’s unorthodox compositions. Further, George H Seeley was himself an unorthodox photographer who fell into obscurity after declining an offer to head the art department at Pratt Institute, and instead remaining in Stockbridge taking a multiplicity of roles, and even becoming an authority on birds. No. 356 is an eccentric image, where the woman at the center of the image offering the bowl of fruit has closed eyes as in a reverent gesture while the second woman on the right stares at the camera in an enigmatic manner, thus creating an incongruous situation akin to Salazar Simpson’s portfolio.
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill | selection curator | Sylvia Salazar Simpson | 1974 | selection of four black-and-white photographs artist's portfolio | Antes-Después (Before-after) | 1981 | two color photographs on accordion book | Imitations | 1977 | folded two faced artist book | Imitations | Pink Plastic Flowers | edition | 2019 | enlarged digital prints | Collection Piece | André Kertész | Colette | 1930 | gelatin silver print | George H Seeley | No. 356, From the journal | Camera Work | 1910 | Photogravure | digital reproduction print Statement: Salazar Simpson’s work collapses notions of the beautiful and alluring with the repulsive and the scatological. In Sylvia Salazar Simpson, 1970s an artist’s portfolio of nineteenth black and white photographs, the artist is photographed from behind to show headdresses fashioned with food items such as pineapples, tortillas, pig’s feet, tacos, eaten apples, corn, radishes, cheese, bananas, octopuses, and slices of cheese, to question the way beauty is conditioned through the idea of adornment. ​​Salazar Simpson is a pioneer of performative conceptual photography in 1970s LA but has remained in relative obscurity given the radicality of much of her work and her unconventional personality. The dialogue with Colette pays homage to both women’s eccentricity and creative originality, and to André Kertész’s unorthodox compositions. Further, George H Seeley was himself an unorthodox photographer who fell into obscurity after declining an offer to head the art department at Pratt Institute, and instead remaining in Stockbridge taking a multiplicity of roles, and even becoming an authority on birds. No. 356 is an eccentric image, where the woman at the center of the image offering the bowl of fruit has closed eyes as in a reverent gesture while the second woman on the right stares at the camera in an enigmatic manner, thus creating an incongruous situation akin to Salazar Simpson’s portfolio.
Hilary Harp | Catacombs | 2024 | video, duration 1 minute loop | audio created by Barry Moon | Collection Piece: Peter Hujar | Palermo Catacombs #6, Girl with Gloves, n/p | 1963/70s | gelatin Silver Print | Artist Statement: “Photography also converts the whole world into a cemetery.” -Susan Sontag A current project has led me to recurrently mine Adobe Mixamo’s hilarious motion capture library. It is funny to mis-allocate action to the body. The gestural codes of gender, military training and zombies are recognizable to anybody. The photographs that Peter Hujar took in the Palermo catacombs overstate the relationship between photography and death. They seem to say that a photograph is like a mummified corpse on display forever. In my response to Hujar’s photograph, the relationship between photographs and death is made undead through the joy of Mixamo’s “scary zombie pack.”
Hilary Harp | Catacombs | 2024 | video, duration 1 minute loop | audio created by Barry Moon | Collection Piece: Peter Hujar | Palermo Catacombs #6, Girl with Gloves, n/p | 1963/70s | gelatin Silver Print | Artist Statement: “Photography also converts the whole world into a cemetery.” -Susan Sontag A current project has led me to recurrently mine Adobe Mixamo’s hilarious motion capture library. It is funny to mis-allocate action to the body. The gestural codes of gender, military training and zombies are recognizable to anybody. The photographs that Peter Hujar took in the Palermo catacombs overstate the relationship between photography and death. They seem to say that a photograph is like a mummified corpse on display forever. In my response to Hujar’s photograph, the relationship between photographs and death is made undead through the joy of Mixamo’s “scary zombie pack.”
Dean K. Terasaki | Elegy for a dress uniform | 2024 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Weegee | [Joseph Luparelli wearing his older brother's Army uniform…, New York], October 18, 1942 | gelatin silver print | Artist Statement: This is a photomontage of my father’s dress uniform jacket with an image of Dad. When the snapshot was taken, he was likely near the end of his army training before shipping out to combat. For boys growing up in the early 1960’s, male identity was strongly identified with the military. Their fathers, belonging to what Tom Brokaw called “the Greatest Generation,” identified manliness as being a soldier, serving for one’s country and killing its enemies. I honor my father’s service in the Japanese American, 442nd Regiment. He was a combat veteran. I am also very proud that I marched against wars in Vietnam (1972) and Iraq (2003). I never served in the military. I recall a conversation with Michael Berman when he described that our lives differed from those men just a few years older because our idealism never died in the Southeast Asian jungle or the fallout from the anti-war movement. I once saw my father weep after being confronted with the sacrifices made by his friends. That made me understand that war was something terrible. His pain reflected the depth of purpose behind his reticence about his experience. Dad’s tears protected me.
Dean K. Terasaki | Elegy for a dress uniform | 2024 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Weegee | [Joseph Luparelli wearing his older brother's Army uniform…, New York], October 18, 1942 | gelatin silver print | Artist Statement: This is a photomontage of my father’s dress uniform jacket with an image of Dad. When the snapshot was taken, he was likely near the end of his army training before shipping out to combat. For boys growing up in the early 1960’s, male identity was strongly identified with the military. Their fathers, belonging to what Tom Brokaw called “the Greatest Generation,” identified manliness as being a soldier, serving for one’s country and killing its enemies. I honor my father’s service in the Japanese American, 442nd Regiment. He was a combat veteran. I am also very proud that I marched against wars in Vietnam (1972) and Iraq (2003). I never served in the military. I recall a conversation with Michael Berman when he described that our lives differed from those men just a few years older because our idealism never died in the Southeast Asian jungle or the fallout from the anti-war movement. I once saw my father weep after being confronted with the sacrifices made by his friends. That made me understand that war was something terrible. His pain reflected the depth of purpose behind his reticence about his experience. Dad’s tears protected me.
Mehrdad Mirzaie | Unidentified | 2024 | Archival Inkjet Print | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled, | c. late 19th century | Albumen Print, digital reproduction print | Artist Statement: In social circles in the Middle East, due to religious beliefs, women's faces, hair, and bodies are deemed inappropriate for viewing by men who are not their family. Undoubtedly, the approach to these issues has changed within these communities over time. With the advent of photography and the introduction of cameras to the region, the initial images encountered are fraught with contradictions. They comprise group and individual depictions of women without discernible faces, their bodies concealed by fabric. The absence of the individuality of these women is striking. In these societies, the body becomes a highly politicized entity. Individuals continually vie for control and assert dominance over others' bodies and their environment. This control permeates various spheres, from familial dynamics to governmental authority, often serving as a metaphorical veil for power dynamics. These images, though concealed and veiled from sight, challenge the taboo of observing a woman's body. The structures of power and control over others can subvert conventional understanding. To me, these photographs transcend mere historical and social documentation; they are truly political, particularly as someone from the Middle East. For the same reason that in every revolution in the Middle East, from the Green Movement in Iran in 2008 to the Arab Spring, 2009, and the revolution of the Woman, Life, Freedom in Iran, 2022, the woman's body is the context of revolution. A place where power trembles and breaks. "The Girls of Enghelab protests (Persian: دختران†انقلاب†) are protests against the compulsory hijab in Iran, part of the wider Iranian Democracy Movement. The protests were inspired by Vida Movahed, an Iranian woman known as the Girl of Enghelab Street (Persian: ,(دختر†خیابان†انقلاب who stood in the crowd on a utility box on Enghelab Street (Revolution Street) in Tehran on 27 December 2017 during the 2017–2018 Iranian protests who tied a white headscarf, to a stick, and waved it to the crowd as a flag."
Mehrdad Mirzaie | Unidentified | 2024 | Archival Inkjet Print | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled, | c. late 19th century | Albumen Print, digital reproduction print | Artist Statement: In social circles in the Middle East, due to religious beliefs, women's faces, hair, and bodies are deemed inappropriate for viewing by men who are not their family. Undoubtedly, the approach to these issues has changed within these communities over time. With the advent of photography and the introduction of cameras to the region, the initial images encountered are fraught with contradictions. They comprise group and individual depictions of women without discernible faces, their bodies concealed by fabric. The absence of the individuality of these women is striking. In these societies, the body becomes a highly politicized entity. Individuals continually vie for control and assert dominance over others' bodies and their environment. This control permeates various spheres, from familial dynamics to governmental authority, often serving as a metaphorical veil for power dynamics. These images, though concealed and veiled from sight, challenge the taboo of observing a woman's body. The structures of power and control over others can subvert conventional understanding. To me, these photographs transcend mere historical and social documentation; they are truly political, particularly as someone from the Middle East. For the same reason that in every revolution in the Middle East, from the Green Movement in Iran in 2008 to the Arab Spring, 2009, and the revolution of the Woman, Life, Freedom in Iran, 2022, the woman's body is the context of revolution. A place where power trembles and breaks. "The Girls of Enghelab protests (Persian: دختران†انقلاب†) are protests against the compulsory hijab in Iran, part of the wider Iranian Democracy Movement. The protests were inspired by Vida Movahed, an Iranian woman known as the Girl of Enghelab Street (Persian: ,(دختر†خیابان†انقلاب who stood in the crowd on a utility box on Enghelab Street (Revolution Street) in Tehran on 27 December 2017 during the 2017–2018 Iranian protests who tied a white headscarf, to a stick, and waved it to the crowd as a flag."
Liz Cohen | Linette | c. 1999 | gelatin silver print | Collection Piece: Richard Avedon | Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York City, May 6, 1957 | Gelatin Silver Print (portfolio) | 1970 | Artist Statement: Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, came from humble, difficult beginnings and became an icon. She was both a sex symbol and an astute businesswoman. She understood her value and fought the film industry for better contracts. Richard Avedon was hired to do the press photography for her last film, the only from Marilyn Monroe Studios, The Prince and the Showgirl. While his famous image of Marilyn Monroe was never used to promote the film, it became iconic perhaps because it caught something about Marilyn Monroe’s private life and public persona simultaneously. I met Linette sometime around 1997. She was standing on La Avenida de los Martires / La Avenida Cuatro de Julio on the fringe of what was then the US Canal Zone attracting clients. Like Marilyn, she gave herself a name, Linette, to suit her public persona. Linette is the descendant of West Indian Panama Canal workers and at the time of the photograph was living in the El Chorillo neighborhood of Panama City. Linette was a leader and maternal figure in her trans sex worker community. The interchange resulting in the photograph took place in her home and gathering place.
Liz Cohen | Linette | c. 1999 | gelatin silver print | Collection Piece: Richard Avedon | Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York City, May 6, 1957 | Gelatin Silver Print (portfolio) | 1970 | Artist Statement: Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, came from humble, difficult beginnings and became an icon. She was both a sex symbol and an astute businesswoman. She understood her value and fought the film industry for better contracts. Richard Avedon was hired to do the press photography for her last film, the only from Marilyn Monroe Studios, The Prince and the Showgirl. While his famous image of Marilyn Monroe was never used to promote the film, it became iconic perhaps because it caught something about Marilyn Monroe’s private life and public persona simultaneously. I met Linette sometime around 1997. She was standing on La Avenida de los Martires / La Avenida Cuatro de Julio on the fringe of what was then the US Canal Zone attracting clients. Like Marilyn, she gave herself a name, Linette, to suit her public persona. Linette is the descendant of West Indian Panama Canal workers and at the time of the photograph was living in the El Chorillo neighborhood of Panama City. Linette was a leader and maternal figure in her trans sex worker community. The interchange resulting in the photograph took place in her home and gathering place.
Rebecca Ross | Jamie as Marilyn | February 1987 | gelatin silver print | Collection Piece: Weegee | Transvestite in a Police Van | 1941 | gelatin silver print | Artist Statement: This photograph by Weegee intrigues me because it humanizes a time when expressions of gender were perceived differently. It prompts me to consider my own photographs made of female impersonators while I was in graduate school at ASU in the 1980s. I visited bars and nightclubs during performances and was struck by both the openness and freedom of the performers as well as the subculture nature of the locations. The freedom of the 1980s performers is in stark contrast to the arrest of the boy in the Weegee photograph made nearly 50 years earlier.
Rebecca Ross | Jamie as Marilyn | February 1987 | gelatin silver print | Collection Piece: Weegee | Transvestite in a Police Van | 1941 | gelatin silver print | Artist Statement: This photograph by Weegee intrigues me because it humanizes a time when expressions of gender were perceived differently. It prompts me to consider my own photographs made of female impersonators while I was in graduate school at ASU in the 1980s. I visited bars and nightclubs during performances and was struck by both the openness and freedom of the performers as well as the subculture nature of the locations. The freedom of the 1980s performers is in stark contrast to the arrest of the boy in the Weegee photograph made nearly 50 years earlier.
Camille Misty | Destroyed Living Room | 2023 | Archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Albert Arthur Allen | Sex Appeal | c. 1925 | Gelatin silver print | Digital reproduction print | Artist Statement: The portrait by Albert Arthur Allen from the Sex Appeal series probes toward conversations related to subjectivity and the relationship between photographer and muse. For this relation/comparison, I am considering gendered gaze shifts over time, and the performance of womanhood. My piece, Destroyed Living Room, features a female olympian. I see parallels in each portrait's wardrobe and gesture: a relaxed orbital skirt vs structured orbital skirt and the standing position (we see this specifically in the footing).These images contrast energetically and compare nicely visually. There are certain rigidities to each of these people.
Camille Misty | Destroyed Living Room | 2023 | Archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Albert Arthur Allen | Sex Appeal | c. 1925 | Gelatin silver print | Digital reproduction print | Artist Statement: The portrait by Albert Arthur Allen from the Sex Appeal series probes toward conversations related to subjectivity and the relationship between photographer and muse. For this relation/comparison, I am considering gendered gaze shifts over time, and the performance of womanhood. My piece, Destroyed Living Room, features a female olympian. I see parallels in each portrait's wardrobe and gesture: a relaxed orbital skirt vs structured orbital skirt and the standing position (we see this specifically in the footing).These images contrast energetically and compare nicely visually. There are certain rigidities to each of these people.
Gregory Sale | New Waters | 2024 | participatory installation | Testing Waters | 1997 | video document of 3-hour performance duration 3:45 minutes (video: Vikki Dempsey) Art on the Edge of Fashion, ASU Art Museum | Britches | 1995 | Gregory Sale and Ronald James Winterrowd | performance costume (fabrication: Julia Latané) | Collection Piece: Robert Mapplethorpe | Self Portrait | A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Robert Mapplethorpe | Gun Blast, A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Artist Statement: In 1997, I used these britches in a performance piece about desiring to be in intimate relationships again after having lost a life partner to AIDS. The performance was raw, vulnerable, humorous and disruptive. It claimed its own space in a time when being a man who loved another man wasn’t given space. Knowing Mapplethorpe’s unflinching, sexually loaded photographs and the controversy surrounding, as well as support for, his artwork, empowered my own boundary crossing that was emotionally naked and, in its own ways, working towards a freedom from inhibition. Our work came out of a moment in history, and it had a fire in that moment. Bringing Testing Waters forward today, 25 years later, as New Waters, I invite you to contemplate the fire of this present moment, to form new connections, and to ask your own questions about intimacy, grief, and longing in taboo spaces. What bodies and desires are not given space today? What griefs are we not allowed to mourn publicly? How can we be brave and honest and, yes, confrontational if necessary, in claiming spaces for our differences, for our individuality, and for our collectivity?
Gregory Sale | New Waters | 2024 | participatory installation | Testing Waters | 1997 | video document of 3-hour performance duration 3:45 minutes (video: Vikki Dempsey) Art on the Edge of Fashion, ASU Art Museum | Britches | 1995 | Gregory Sale and Ronald James Winterrowd | performance costume (fabrication: Julia Latané) | Collection Piece: Robert Mapplethorpe | Self Portrait | A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Robert Mapplethorpe | Gun Blast, A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Artist Statement: In 1997, I used these britches in a performance piece about desiring to be in intimate relationships again after having lost a life partner to AIDS. The performance was raw, vulnerable, humorous and disruptive. It claimed its own space in a time when being a man who loved another man wasn’t given space. Knowing Mapplethorpe’s unflinching, sexually loaded photographs and the controversy surrounding, as well as support for, his artwork, empowered my own boundary crossing that was emotionally naked and, in its own ways, working towards a freedom from inhibition. Our work came out of a moment in history, and it had a fire in that moment. Bringing Testing Waters forward today, 25 years later, as New Waters, I invite you to contemplate the fire of this present moment, to form new connections, and to ask your own questions about intimacy, grief, and longing in taboo spaces. What bodies and desires are not given space today? What griefs are we not allowed to mourn publicly? How can we be brave and honest and, yes, confrontational if necessary, in claiming spaces for our differences, for our individuality, and for our collectivity?
Richard Pence | Retroreflection | 2024 | silver gelatin print and illuminated stereograph viewer | Collection Piece: Richard Avedon | The Duke and Duchess of Windsor | 1957 | silver gelatin print | Artist Statement: Retroreflection is an interactive photographic piece based on an experimental process I am calling reverse ocular stereophotography, wherein the reflections in the subject’s eyes from a single portrait photograph can be extracted and reinterpreted to create a three-dimensional stereoscopic view of the camera, photographer, and scene directly opposite the subject. This process can be applied retroactively to any head-on portrait with adequately bright and sharp reflections in the eyes. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor by Avedon, published in the book Nothing Personal in 1964, shows an odd and uncomfortable side of the normally regal former king of England and his wife Wallis Simpson. Avedon orchestrated the discomfort of the Duchess and the protective glare of the Duke by purposefully telling them a story of seeing a dog run over, knowing they were both dog lovers. The scene paints itself on their faces, and it would be equally painted by the scene opposite them. The whole set is designed for extorting its subjects; with blinding studio lights, loyal studio assistants, a complicated camera, and an intimidating photographer. Reflected in the eyes of this photograph’s subjects is the perpetuation of the male dominated studio photography industry that still persists today.
Richard Pence | Retroreflection | 2024 | silver gelatin print and illuminated stereograph viewer | Collection Piece: Richard Avedon | The Duke and Duchess of Windsor | 1957 | silver gelatin print | Artist Statement: Retroreflection is an interactive photographic piece based on an experimental process I am calling reverse ocular stereophotography, wherein the reflections in the subject’s eyes from a single portrait photograph can be extracted and reinterpreted to create a three-dimensional stereoscopic view of the camera, photographer, and scene directly opposite the subject. This process can be applied retroactively to any head-on portrait with adequately bright and sharp reflections in the eyes. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor by Avedon, published in the book Nothing Personal in 1964, shows an odd and uncomfortable side of the normally regal former king of England and his wife Wallis Simpson. Avedon orchestrated the discomfort of the Duchess and the protective glare of the Duke by purposefully telling them a story of seeing a dog run over, knowing they were both dog lovers. The scene paints itself on their faces, and it would be equally painted by the scene opposite them. The whole set is designed for extorting its subjects; with blinding studio lights, loyal studio assistants, a complicated camera, and an intimidating photographer. Reflected in the eyes of this photograph’s subjects is the perpetuation of the male dominated studio photography industry that still persists today.
Alejandro T. Acierto | Ary/a | 2023 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Robert Mappelthorpe | Javier, A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Artist Statement: “C’est très-certain, c’est oracle, ce que je dis. Je comprends, et ne sachant m’expliquer sans paroles païennes, je voudrais me taire.” (What I say is absolutely right, I’m an oracle. I understand things, and since I can’t explain myself except with pagan words, I would rather say nothing.) Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, 1873 (transl. Paul Schmidt) “Utopia is not prescriptive; it renders potential blueprints of a world not quite here, a horizon of possibility, not a fixed schema.” José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 2009 To look between this pair of images is to embody the gentle undulation of water as figures punctuate the frame. Eyes sway across surfaces in a pairing that insist upon a horizontality to make sense of distinct instances formally unsimilar yet conditioned by legacies of queer in/visibility. Both are haunted by distinct forms of queer erasure: Mapplethorpe’s rendering of Javier was made during the Reagan administration’s refusal to address the crisis of the AIDS epidemic, while the image of Ary/a and their kin is conditioned by a recent flourish of anti-trans legislation that pose incalculable health and safety risks for queer people nationwide. Yet their pairing illuminates other worlds that hold in tension moments of calm despite the overwhelm of feeling underwater.
Alejandro T. Acierto | Ary/a | 2023 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Robert Mappelthorpe | Javier, A Season in Hell | 1986 | photogravure | Artist Statement: “C’est très-certain, c’est oracle, ce que je dis. Je comprends, et ne sachant m’expliquer sans paroles païennes, je voudrais me taire.” (What I say is absolutely right, I’m an oracle. I understand things, and since I can’t explain myself except with pagan words, I would rather say nothing.) Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, 1873 (transl. Paul Schmidt) “Utopia is not prescriptive; it renders potential blueprints of a world not quite here, a horizon of possibility, not a fixed schema.” José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 2009 To look between this pair of images is to embody the gentle undulation of water as figures punctuate the frame. Eyes sway across surfaces in a pairing that insist upon a horizontality to make sense of distinct instances formally unsimilar yet conditioned by legacies of queer in/visibility. Both are haunted by distinct forms of queer erasure: Mapplethorpe’s rendering of Javier was made during the Reagan administration’s refusal to address the crisis of the AIDS epidemic, while the image of Ary/a and their kin is conditioned by a recent flourish of anti-trans legislation that pose incalculable health and safety risks for queer people nationwide. Yet their pairing illuminates other worlds that hold in tension moments of calm despite the overwhelm of feeling underwater.
Liz Allen | Ritualizing Forgiveness | 2024 | 3 1-minute loop video installation with table and Sorry board game | Collection Piece: Bill Owens | From Suburbia | 1972 | diptych: gelatin silver print and text | portfolio printed 1977 | Bill Owens | We are really happy. Our kids are healthy, we eat good food, and we have a really nice home | 1972 Artist Statement: In his portrait of a family in the suburbs made in 1972, Bill Owens depicts a version of the “The American Dream” that the subjects themselves endeavored to present and live. The wife/mother, husband/father and baby reflect the stereotypical gender roles of the time; male as protector/provider and female as nurturer/homemaker. The arrangement of the subjects in the frame - the male figure with a cocktail in hand standing casually behind the female figure while she feeds the baby - implies the gendered power dynamics of the late 20th century within the family. Ritualizing Forgiveness transforms the familiar family board game Sorry, popularized in the 1970s, into a metaphor for the power dynamics within the family. The viewer is invited to participate in the balancing act performed by family members as they add colorful pieces and attempt to find equilibrium. The video depicts my family members and myself repeatedly apologizing for unnamed regrets, transgressions, mistakes and past hurts in an attempt to heal and establish understanding, forgiveness and equanimity. Excerpted from Sorry, America’s Favorite Pastime “She found the Chapstick rolling around in the drawer of the bathroom cabinet after her tenant moved out. She remembered it as the kind her dad had used. She picked it up and pulled off the cap to sniff it. As soon as the recognition hit her senses, she had the urge to vomit. Her reaction was instantaneous and unsettled her for the rest of the day. Research shows that the olfactory sense has the strongest connection to memory. … She remembered after church on Sunday they would play Sorry with her little sister and brother, the delicious smell of donuts still in the air and on her breath. She remembered he would often win. She remembered he would taunt them by saying - the good guys always win, the good guys always win - until they laughed and screamed, pounding his chest with their small fists in frustration and complete domination. Later as an adult, she played with her niece and nephews and realized there was a strategy to the game. An adult could always beat a child. English Leather, Old Golds and the original Chapstick, she didn’t remember why the smell should make her so repulsed.”
Liz Allen | Ritualizing Forgiveness | 2024 | 3 1-minute loop video installation with table and Sorry board game | Collection Piece: Bill Owens | From Suburbia | 1972 | diptych: gelatin silver print and text | portfolio printed 1977 | Bill Owens | We are really happy. Our kids are healthy, we eat good food, and we have a really nice home | 1972 Artist Statement: In his portrait of a family in the suburbs made in 1972, Bill Owens depicts a version of the “The American Dream” that the subjects themselves endeavored to present and live. The wife/mother, husband/father and baby reflect the stereotypical gender roles of the time; male as protector/provider and female as nurturer/homemaker. The arrangement of the subjects in the frame - the male figure with a cocktail in hand standing casually behind the female figure while she feeds the baby - implies the gendered power dynamics of the late 20th century within the family. Ritualizing Forgiveness transforms the familiar family board game Sorry, popularized in the 1970s, into a metaphor for the power dynamics within the family. The viewer is invited to participate in the balancing act performed by family members as they add colorful pieces and attempt to find equilibrium. The video depicts my family members and myself repeatedly apologizing for unnamed regrets, transgressions, mistakes and past hurts in an attempt to heal and establish understanding, forgiveness and equanimity. Excerpted from Sorry, America’s Favorite Pastime “She found the Chapstick rolling around in the drawer of the bathroom cabinet after her tenant moved out. She remembered it as the kind her dad had used. She picked it up and pulled off the cap to sniff it. As soon as the recognition hit her senses, she had the urge to vomit. Her reaction was instantaneous and unsettled her for the rest of the day. Research shows that the olfactory sense has the strongest connection to memory. … She remembered after church on Sunday they would play Sorry with her little sister and brother, the delicious smell of donuts still in the air and on her breath. She remembered he would often win. She remembered he would taunt them by saying - the good guys always win, the good guys always win - until they laughed and screamed, pounding his chest with their small fists in frustration and complete domination. Later as an adult, she played with her niece and nephews and realized there was a strategy to the game. An adult could always beat a child. English Leather, Old Golds and the original Chapstick, she didn’t remember why the smell should make her so repulsed.”
Adriene Jenik | It didn’t work | 2024 | poem | Collection Piece: Bill Owens | From Surburbia | 1972 | diptych: gelatin silver print and text | portfolio printed 1977 Bill Owens | I wanted Christina to learn some responsibility for cleaning her room, but it didn't work. From Suburbia | 1972 | Artist Statement: It didn’t work is a short poem inspired by Bill Owen’s photograph entitled “I wanted Christina to learn some responsibility for cleaning her room, but it didn’t work.”
Adriene Jenik | It didn’t work | 2024 | poem | Collection Piece: Bill Owens | From Surburbia | 1972 | diptych: gelatin silver print and text | portfolio printed 1977 Bill Owens | I wanted Christina to learn some responsibility for cleaning her room, but it didn't work. From Suburbia | 1972 | Artist Statement: It didn’t work is a short poem inspired by Bill Owen’s photograph entitled “I wanted Christina to learn some responsibility for cleaning her room, but it didn’t work.”
Jennifer Ling Datchuk | For Your Eyes Only | 2024 | porcelain, Vietnamese nail school acrylic nails, synthetic hair | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled | n.d. gelatin silver stereograph Artist Statement: I explore themes of the anonymous in forms of pleasure, the power structures of who gets to receive pleasure, and consent and agency with the nude female body by examining the untitled gelatin silver stereograph “Unidentified”. The woman on full display has a glint of joy in her eyes and a sly smile and her gaze suggests an intimate relationship with the viewer. With the capture of this image, what is her agency, consent, or personhood in this frozen moment? Is this an erotic image for a solo individual or does this exist within pornography for sale? Whose eyes are this for? As a Chinese woman, I am hyper-aware of the constant fetishization, hyper sexualization, and consumption of our bodies through systems of labor, service, and care. Through the material culture of pure, white porcelain clay, a delicate porcelain hands extends into our public arena from a private space. The slightly fisted hand, adorned with long painted acrylic nails, tenderly cradles a porcelain peach that is cut in half, dripping in its juices, and plump in its surface. This hand gesture captures the tension between the power to give and receive pleasure and reclaims our agency in this experience.
Jennifer Ling Datchuk | For Your Eyes Only | 2024 | porcelain, Vietnamese nail school acrylic nails, synthetic hair | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled | n.d. gelatin silver stereograph Artist Statement: I explore themes of the anonymous in forms of pleasure, the power structures of who gets to receive pleasure, and consent and agency with the nude female body by examining the untitled gelatin silver stereograph “Unidentified”. The woman on full display has a glint of joy in her eyes and a sly smile and her gaze suggests an intimate relationship with the viewer. With the capture of this image, what is her agency, consent, or personhood in this frozen moment? Is this an erotic image for a solo individual or does this exist within pornography for sale? Whose eyes are this for? As a Chinese woman, I am hyper-aware of the constant fetishization, hyper sexualization, and consumption of our bodies through systems of labor, service, and care. Through the material culture of pure, white porcelain clay, a delicate porcelain hands extends into our public arena from a private space. The slightly fisted hand, adorned with long painted acrylic nails, tenderly cradles a porcelain peach that is cut in half, dripping in its juices, and plump in its surface. This hand gesture captures the tension between the power to give and receive pleasure and reclaims our agency in this experience.
li rothrock | Our Queen Mother of the West | 2024 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Manuel Alvarez Bravo | Xipototec | 1979 portfolio 1981 | palladium Artist Statement: Xiwangmu – Our Queen Mother of the West – is an ancient Chinese goddess, guard of the peach tree of immortality, known for her wisdom. In legends, she transitioned from tiger to woman-god, always retaining a feral nature. She is sometimes depicted as having a tiger’s ears and tail. Here, echoing Manual Alvarez Bravo’s depiction of the male Aztec god Xipototec as a woman, I represent Xiwangmu as a man. Xipototec was part of Bravo’s cultural heritage, as Xiwangmu is of mine. While this response may seem straightforward – I simply translate Bravo’s script to my own culture – the reality is more complex. Photographic history is rife with men using women’s bodies to represent whatever they want – sex, desire, sin, frailty, other gods. The act of photographing a nude male body as a woman stands in direct, complicating contrast to this legacy. In addition, by using a male body to represent one of the Chinese pantheon’s most powerful deities, I challenge the enduring misogyny of Western culture which positions feminine bodies as shameful and thus not worthy of embodiment by masculine bodies.
li rothrock | Our Queen Mother of the West | 2024 | archival inkjet print | Collection Piece: Manuel Alvarez Bravo | Xipototec | 1979 portfolio 1981 | palladium Artist Statement: Xiwangmu – Our Queen Mother of the West – is an ancient Chinese goddess, guard of the peach tree of immortality, known for her wisdom. In legends, she transitioned from tiger to woman-god, always retaining a feral nature. She is sometimes depicted as having a tiger’s ears and tail. Here, echoing Manual Alvarez Bravo’s depiction of the male Aztec god Xipototec as a woman, I represent Xiwangmu as a man. Xipototec was part of Bravo’s cultural heritage, as Xiwangmu is of mine. While this response may seem straightforward – I simply translate Bravo’s script to my own culture – the reality is more complex. Photographic history is rife with men using women’s bodies to represent whatever they want – sex, desire, sin, frailty, other gods. The act of photographing a nude male body as a woman stands in direct, complicating contrast to this legacy. In addition, by using a male body to represent one of the Chinese pantheon’s most powerful deities, I challenge the enduring misogyny of Western culture which positions feminine bodies as shameful and thus not worthy of embodiment by masculine bodies.
Erika Lynne Hanson | or weird doubles | 2024 | woven and dyed linen, lurex, & wool, with wood supports | Collection Piece: Henri Béchard | no. 135 Saqqarah Pyramide | c. 1870’s no. 136 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s. | albumen print album Voyage en Egypt et Nubia A.B. | c. 1870s Artist Statement: The Stepped Pyramid of Djoser at the Saqqara necropolis is among the first pyramids built, dating to the 27th century BC. There are two images of the pyramid in the Solari collection by Henri Béchard no. 135 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s + no. 136 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s. The images, mounted so that they reflect one another, present slightly varying perspectives of the massive ancient structure. Immediate questions of time travel, looping, and labor arise viewing two images captured roughly one hundred and fifty years ago of two people standing in front of a monument to the dead, built nearly three thousand years prior. The work created in dialogue with the prints considers the weirdness of the mirror, skewed perspectives, and the flexibility of time (rock time, human time, paper time, civilizational time).
Erika Lynne Hanson | or weird doubles | 2024 | woven and dyed linen, lurex, & wool, with wood supports | Collection Piece: Henri Béchard | no. 135 Saqqarah Pyramide | c. 1870’s no. 136 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s. | albumen print album Voyage en Egypt et Nubia A.B. | c. 1870s Artist Statement: The Stepped Pyramid of Djoser at the Saqqara necropolis is among the first pyramids built, dating to the 27th century BC. There are two images of the pyramid in the Solari collection by Henri Béchard no. 135 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s + no. 136 Saqqarah Pyramide, c. 1870’s. The images, mounted so that they reflect one another, present slightly varying perspectives of the massive ancient structure. Immediate questions of time travel, looping, and labor arise viewing two images captured roughly one hundred and fifty years ago of two people standing in front of a monument to the dead, built nearly three thousand years prior. The work created in dialogue with the prints considers the weirdness of the mirror, skewed perspectives, and the flexibility of time (rock time, human time, paper time, civilizational time).
Meredith Hoy | The Forms of Ruin | 2024 | Installation of text on 3 x 5 cards on hooks and shelves with objects | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled | c. late 19th century | albumen print digital reproduction print Artist Statement: In the last decades of the 18th century, a wave of defiance swept through Western Europe, crushing the rigid balustrades of Enlightenment rationalism. In its wake, the Romantic movement championed imaginative turbulence, emotional intensity, and creative genius. Romantics conjured exotic pleasure palaces and opulent empires only to find themselves seduced by ruins. As fantasmatic monuments to an unknowable past, architectural ruins became metonymically linked in the Romantic imagination to the fragmentary nature of memory. Fascination with ruins and fragments persists energetically in the 21st century. In The Forms of Ruin, a carefully preserved 19th century photograph of ruins finds itself in dubious company. Stacks of paper mounted on cheap hooks reveal a collection of not-quite stories about stories, unburdened by the possibility of resolution. The Forms of Ruin seeks intimacy by navigating its opposites: disconnection, incompleteness and absence. Some stories are about family, but are not family stories. Another story is about a former professor, whose role in introducing me to Romanticism is only incidental. My emotional attachment to her, disproportionate to our brief acquaintance, runs deep, rendered no less tangible by my recalcitrant memory and spotty recollection of events. Each of these stories contain forms of ruin. You are invited to collect one or more, to carry with you an artifact of uncertainty that, while stuttering and fragile, cannot be other than unerringly true.
Meredith Hoy | The Forms of Ruin | 2024 | Installation of text on 3 x 5 cards on hooks and shelves with objects | Collection Piece: Unidentified | Untitled | c. late 19th century | albumen print digital reproduction print Artist Statement: In the last decades of the 18th century, a wave of defiance swept through Western Europe, crushing the rigid balustrades of Enlightenment rationalism. In its wake, the Romantic movement championed imaginative turbulence, emotional intensity, and creative genius. Romantics conjured exotic pleasure palaces and opulent empires only to find themselves seduced by ruins. As fantasmatic monuments to an unknowable past, architectural ruins became metonymically linked in the Romantic imagination to the fragmentary nature of memory. Fascination with ruins and fragments persists energetically in the 21st century. In The Forms of Ruin, a carefully preserved 19th century photograph of ruins finds itself in dubious company. Stacks of paper mounted on cheap hooks reveal a collection of not-quite stories about stories, unburdened by the possibility of resolution. The Forms of Ruin seeks intimacy by navigating its opposites: disconnection, incompleteness and absence. Some stories are about family, but are not family stories. Another story is about a former professor, whose role in introducing me to Romanticism is only incidental. My emotional attachment to her, disproportionate to our brief acquaintance, runs deep, rendered no less tangible by my recalcitrant memory and spotty recollection of events. Each of these stories contain forms of ruin. You are invited to collect one or more, to carry with you an artifact of uncertainty that, while stuttering and fragile, cannot be other than unerringly true.
Camila de Andrade Bianchi | The Landscapes Within Gender | 2024 | compost culture, steel, nylon cloth | Artist Statement: The Landscapes Within Gender is a sculpture created to engage in a dialogue with the works of Anne W. Brigman and Edmund Teske, two photographers who, despite being from different eras and genders, share a common thread in their depiction of nature. Brigman and Teske's works, The Bubble (1909) and Untitled (1970), respectively, showcase influences from Eighteenth-century romantic notions around nature and the sublime, as well as nuanced tensions related to gendered representations of spirituality in nature. Building on these tensions, with The Landscapes Within Gender, my goal is to challenge the persistent stereotypes and classical traditions surrounding the concept of a "landscape" and its associated gender. This living sculpture is composed of composting cultures, positioned as metaphors to understand gender as a byproduct of cultures and to catalyze the complexity of gender against porous bodies.
Camila de Andrade Bianchi | The Landscapes Within Gender | 2024 | compost culture, steel, nylon cloth | Artist Statement: The Landscapes Within Gender is a sculpture created to engage in a dialogue with the works of Anne W. Brigman and Edmund Teske, two photographers who, despite being from different eras and genders, share a common thread in their depiction of nature. Brigman and Teske's works, The Bubble (1909) and Untitled (1970), respectively, showcase influences from Eighteenth-century romantic notions around nature and the sublime, as well as nuanced tensions related to gendered representations of spirituality in nature. Building on these tensions, with The Landscapes Within Gender, my goal is to challenge the persistent stereotypes and classical traditions surrounding the concept of a "landscape" and its associated gender. This living sculpture is composed of composting cultures, positioned as metaphors to understand gender as a byproduct of cultures and to catalyze the complexity of gender against porous bodies.
01
24
22
21
03
04
06
05
09
12
10
10
13
14
20
25
Northilight Gallery invites you to the receptions of “Healing-Rethinking Gender: The Solari Collection and Us: History/Present,” an interdisciplinary collaborative exhibition of artists, faculty and graduate students that pairs photographs from the Solari Collection with their artwork and ideas to engage critically and
creatively with gender and sexuality issues.

Reception | April 5
Performances: Ari Agha, Transgender (in)Sanity, 2023-24
Liza Stout, Shell, 2024
Pop up question and answer

Reception | April 19
Performances:
Andrea Benge, performance, 2024
Julie Anand, Itinerant Camera Obscura, 2024
Pop up question and answer

This interdisciplinary exhibition is an homage to Sylvia Salazar Simpson (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1939), a radical artist ahead of her time, whose work addresses gender in direct and prescient ways, who has not received, to this day, the support and recognition she deserves. Her invisibility suggests the persisting pains the art world and society undergo to acknowledge, support, and provide a free, fertile, and safe space to be, explore and imagine gender and sexuality beyond the confinements of societal norms.

This is a collaborative exhibition of artists, faculty, graduate students, and alumni that selected and paired photographs from the Solari Collection which is housed at Northlight Gallery, with their artwork and ideas to dialogue, engage critically and creatively with gender and sexuality issues.

Co-curated with Cecilia Fajardo-Hill.

Participants: Alejandro T. Acierto, Ari Agha, Liz Allen, Julie Anand, Andrea Benge, Liz Cohen, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Camila de Andrade Bianchi, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Mikey Foster Estes, Erika Lynne Hanson, Hilary Harp, Meredith Hoy, Gigi Marja Konecki, Adriene Jenik, Mehrdad Mirzaie Shahrestanaki, Amanda Mollindo, Richard Pence, Rebecca Ross, Lindsey Rothrock, Gregory Sale, Vivian Rae Spiegelman, Caitlyn Swift, Liza Stout, Teri Tera and Benjamin Timpson.




All