Talia Chetrit
07 Sep - 19 Oct 2012
TALIA CHETRIT
Bodies in trouble
7 September – 19 October, 2012
Tying in with DC Open, Sies + Höke is pleased to present New York-based artist Talia Chetrit’s (*1982) first solo show at the gallery.
In Bodies in Trouble, Talia Chetrit establishes a psychological narrative, encompassing the photographic structures she has built and explored in recent years.
The exhibition is elaborated in three movements through a series of self-portraits. In the black and white series “Hands on Body” Chetrit introduces the use of the male anatomy, specifically the hands. Each frame depicts a male hand gripping, pushing into and engaging with a swath of black velvet fabric. A female form beneath the fabric is revealed by the hands’ shifting placement and the black negative space. These images start as a portrait of a hand and progress to an encounter between a man and woman.
The implied presence of the body continues in a photograph documenting the trace left where the “Hands on Body” images were created.
Two color works picture Chetrit staged in a domestic setting multiplied in a mirror. Doubling unfolds, preventing Chetrit from being clearly realized. The figure is caught in motion. It is uncertain whether she is coming or going. The physiological tension widens.
Finally, Chetrit presents an outdoor scene reminiscent of classical street photographs. The camera, positioned high atop a city building, points down on the street, where the artist is seen looking back up to the camera from a far distance. Just out of view a hand reaches for Chetrit’s arm, reintroducing the male subject.
The show is equally severed, disjointed in narrative, nodding to time period/ director/ movement; an anti-narrative film. This effect is achieved through another form of omission. Like her discrete works, much is carefully edited out. The conflation of these loaded but ambiguous images is where narrative takes shape.
Bodies in trouble
7 September – 19 October, 2012
Tying in with DC Open, Sies + Höke is pleased to present New York-based artist Talia Chetrit’s (*1982) first solo show at the gallery.
In Bodies in Trouble, Talia Chetrit establishes a psychological narrative, encompassing the photographic structures she has built and explored in recent years.
The exhibition is elaborated in three movements through a series of self-portraits. In the black and white series “Hands on Body” Chetrit introduces the use of the male anatomy, specifically the hands. Each frame depicts a male hand gripping, pushing into and engaging with a swath of black velvet fabric. A female form beneath the fabric is revealed by the hands’ shifting placement and the black negative space. These images start as a portrait of a hand and progress to an encounter between a man and woman.
The implied presence of the body continues in a photograph documenting the trace left where the “Hands on Body” images were created.
Two color works picture Chetrit staged in a domestic setting multiplied in a mirror. Doubling unfolds, preventing Chetrit from being clearly realized. The figure is caught in motion. It is uncertain whether she is coming or going. The physiological tension widens.
Finally, Chetrit presents an outdoor scene reminiscent of classical street photographs. The camera, positioned high atop a city building, points down on the street, where the artist is seen looking back up to the camera from a far distance. Just out of view a hand reaches for Chetrit’s arm, reintroducing the male subject.
The show is equally severed, disjointed in narrative, nodding to time period/ director/ movement; an anti-narrative film. This effect is achieved through another form of omission. Like her discrete works, much is carefully edited out. The conflation of these loaded but ambiguous images is where narrative takes shape.