Pam Butler “As Object”
Baxter Street/ the Camera Club of NY
This event has ended.
Curated by Leigh Ledare
Baxter St at CCNY presents As Object, an exhibition of photographs with watercolors, video, sculpture and collage by artist Pam Butler, curated by Leigh Ledare.
Pam Butler’s work explores the nuanced ways in which images reflect cultural coding and social structures. She focuses on the caricatured generic image, where stereotypes and their social myths become exposed. Through repetition, Butler highlights the need for conformity that lurks below our conscious awareness. Her work digs into the inherent contradictions and barely hidden absurdities that lie within our social norms.
In 2000 Butler painted a series of small watercolor paintings based upon the promotional images of Miss America pageant contestants. In 2001 and 2007 she attended the Miss America Pageant, as well as the New York State pageant in 2005 and the Miss New Jersey pageant in 2016. At each event, she photographed the contests from her seat in the audience. The resulting work presents a unique perspective on the pageant’s display and the systemic judging of young women. In this project, as in Butler’s work at large, we are shown the importance and performative nature of cultural norms and the conventions that hold them in place. We can feel how tightly this hold grips us when we consider how these symbols are being used as flash points in our current precarious political moment.
Conversation with Pam Butler & Leigh Ledare: Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 7PM
Media
Schedule
from September 23, 2017 to October 21, 2017
Opening Reception on 2017-09-23 from 18:00 to 20:00