Sissi Westerberg “Becoming”
Rooster Gallery
This event has ended.
Sissi Westerberg’s first solo show in New York, Becoming, poses questions about how to be more, or different, than
what you thought you where; how to expand, regress, merge and let go. The exhibition consists of sculptural objects, videos, installations, photographs and the residue of private performances. The core of the show is a series of works that feature a female character in a beige trench coat who, despite her conventional apperance, submits to inappropriate urges. In the video “Drawing a line”, the character paints a bright pink line on the wall using her pubic hair as a brush, making the trench coat appear more like a flashers coat. The photograph “Tools” documents an activation of a series of carved wooden objects that are somewhere between sticks and extensions of the body.
Another series of works, “I am open”, begins with a sculpture made of electrical cords whose outlets have transformed into orfices. This cord sculpture sits next to a video installation that features a prone body whose head had been replaced with a similar orifice. The body breathes slowly on the ground, creating a ghost like ambiance. One of Westerberg’s most recent video works, “A house of ones own”, features the artist cast as a frenetic beaver, gnawing on logs that later become the structure of a small cottage like house, just big enough to contain her body. The works evoke questions of gender and the role of the contemporary female body, but also of the body in relation to man made objects, nature and the primal aspects of our selves.
Sissi Westerberg is a Swedish artist, who’s work spans sculpture, installation and perfomances that are documented through photograpy and video. She received her MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and design in Stockholm and has also studied at the Betzalel Academy in Jerusalem. Westerberg currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence RI. In the summer, she co-directs an artist-in-residency program in rural Sweden through the non-profit organization Rejmyre Art LAB.
“Sissi Westerberg: Becoming” benefits from the support of The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists.
Media
Schedule
from July 10, 2014 to August 03, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-07-10 from 18:00 to 20:00