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January 25 - April 21, 2007
curated by Manon Slome
Dangerous Beauty
Background:
In the wake of Madrid’s fashion week controversial ban on
underweight models, an the recent publicized death from anorexia
of a Latin American model, the fashion industry and the media went
into a short lived frenzy of self reflection asking, what is too
thin? The proposed ban drew support from only two other countries
– Israel and India – while it was flatly rejected by
the major world fashion capitals of Paris, London and New York.
In a climate where whoever is thinner gets the job, the pressure
to be thin is enormous and as these are the women and girls who
are relentlessly photographed, they become style role models for
a population fascinated by celebrity.
In the quest to emulate this fiction of desirability, the journey
from manipulation of images to the “doctoring” and manipulation
of the self seems increasingly short. More money is spent in this
country on cosmetics than on education and social services combined,
while close to two million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed
last year in the United States. Anorexia and self-mutilation are
rampant. Girls, women and increasingly men alike, compare themselves
to the air brushed “beauties” and feel that everything
about themselves is wrong.
The exhibition, Dangerous Beauty, investigates
and challenges society’s ideal of beauty and the designer
body created and supported by mass consumerism. Many of the artists
selected capture the anxiety of this beauty -centered society and
raise questions on the human impact of living in the glare of images
that, without manipulation, may have no human incarnation. The exhibition
aims to raise questions about the mass ideology of beauty and explore
the connections between beauty and violence, the phobia of aging,
issues of self-perception and the element of power inherent in an
“ideal.”
The exhibition will be composed of a selection of work in a variety
of media (painting, sculpture, photography, installation and video)
chosen to reflect a response to “dangerous beauty”,
this area where the beauty myth collides with reality. The works
selected examine the phenomena and implications of the current dictates
of beauty and identity, contest the values and apparatus of the
times and raise the question as to whether there is a place for
the subjective and the individual in a society of mass expression.
Artists in the exhibition include:
Nelly Agassi
Beth B
Nicola Costantino
Jacob Dahlgren
Davis & Davis
E V Day
Martin C De Waal
Daniella Dooling
Ruud Van Empel
Sylvie Fleury
Lauren Greenfield
Margi Geerlinks
Kirsten Geisler
Micha Klein
Paul Knight
Barbara Kruger
Rachel Lachowicz
Assi Meshullam
Marilyn Minter
Joshua Neustein
Erwin Olaf
Orlan
Patricia Piccinini
Tom Sanford
Gae Savannah
Joan Semmel
Joseph Stashkevetch
A program of panel discussions and screenings will accompany the
exhibition.
To download a press kit, click here.
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556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
tel 212.255.0719 e-mail contact@chelseaartmuseum.org
fax 212.255.2368
open Tuesday through Saturday Noon to 6pm
Thursday Noon to 8pm
closed Sunday and Monday
$8 adults, $4 students and seniors, free for members and visitors
16 and under
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