Lucky Tiger #1, 2009 (4×6 in. type-c print and fingerprinting ink)
© Laurel Nakadate
Laurel Nakadate (previously mentioned on the blog here) has some new photo and video work in an exhibition titled Fever Dreams at the Crystal Motel opening Thursday, May 7th and running through July 24th at Leslie Tonkonow. From the press release:
The exhibition features a new series of short videos projected or displayed on a monitor. In these works, ritualized exorcisms are performed by Nakadate and her cast of amateur actors. Locations shift from dingy, claustrophobic motel rooms to the majestic open spaces of the American West. There are ecstatic dances, woodland walks, train travels, and reluctant stripteases. Unwanted feelings and bad memories are cast away.
The show also includes two groups of photographs: the Fever Dreams series, large images that Nakadate shot while making her videos; and the Lucky Tiger series, small snapshots in which she appears in suggestive poses inspired by 1950s-style cheesecake and camera-club photos. These snapshots were completed during a “performance” in which the artist and anonymous middle- aged men, enlisted via Craigslist.com, covered their hands with fingerprinting ink and touched the photographs together. Sitting in a circle, on the floor of one man’s living room, they passed the snapshots around like trading cards.
More info and images can be found here.
2 Comments
May 8, 2009 – 5:53 pm
I am still not totally okay with this work. There is something about the lack of ownership in her prettygirlness that gets to me. She came and spoke at my school recently and she made me a little sick. She plays with these men and never really acknowledges that problem. I feel like if a man made this project, we would never hear about it. There would be too much talk about the man demeaning the woman and it would never get into an art context, but she can so easily avoid it being that she is a woman it makes it more difficult to bring up.
Unfortunately, that is sort of why I like the work. She activates the viewers response that what we are presented with is messed up, but why? And is that only our baggage makes us think that the work is potentially as messed up as we think it is?
June 23, 2009 – 11:38 am
I recently came across a blog post that discussed Laurel Nakadate’s current exhibit at the Leslie Tonkonow gallery: http://wink-blog.com/2009/06/22/three-exhibits-worth-seeing/.