Mira Dancy and Sarah Peters “Bodyrite”

Asya Geisberg Gallery

poster for Mira Dancy and Sarah Peters “Bodyrite”

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Asya Geisberg Gallery pairs Mira Dancy and Sarah Peters in “BODYRITE”, an exhibition of paintings and sculpture. The duo’s seemingly opposite oeuvres - acid-hued graphic paintings and terracotta miniatures - award us with the possibilities of reimagining the female body as a series of poses, affects, or mere outlines. With a clear nod to millennia of reliance on the female nude, the two artists share an au courant appreciation of its descent into a signifier. Peters, whose work has revived traditional media such as bronze portraiture, plaster casts, and drawing, consistently reframes the history of European sculpture by revising the well-worn catalog of traditional model poses. In so doing, her small sculptures acknowledge the decorative tradition of Elie Nadelman, the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau, the androgyny of Michelangelo, or the manicured daintiness of porcelain. Nonetheless, the individuality, awkwardness, or unfinished nature of each figure disrupts the notion that all the bathers, frolickers, goddesses, and erotic idols are merely objects to be fondled by the owner’s hand. Mira Dancy’s paintings similarly view the female nude as a handed-down convention that bombards our visual sphere, encompassing truck décor, advertising, and shop signage. Her paintings wed the gaudy cheapness of a nail salon’s disembodied hand with repeated brutal brush-stroked curves that erase any individuality or naturalism. In Dancy’s world, the idea of woman exists as a cipher for other referents, a hieroglyph to be universally understood as something else: pleasure, commerce, entertainment. Loud and confusing, her works counter the contemplative interiority of Peters’ sculptures. In reaching back to ancient representations to deliver an eerily clear articulation of now-ness, these artists insist on a muddled reverence for our traditions, wanly off-kilter in the case of Peters, or corrupted and anarchic in Dancy’s works.

Media

Schedule

from October 16, 2014 to November 26, 2014

Opening Reception on 2014-10-16 from 18:00 to 20:00

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