Artists Holly Senn and Amy Ryken invite you to a reception for the group exhibition at The Space titled
"Hide//Seek//Difference//Desire//Northwest,” a local level
response to the nationally traveling exhibit Hide/Seek:
Difference and Desire in American Portraiture currently on
display at the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibit features 19 local
artists from the Pacific Northwest, creating a PNW portrait of
queer culture.
Reception: Saturday, May 12, 7:30-10:00pm
Location: The Space, 720 Court C, Tacoma, WA 98402 (map)
Holly’s artist statement:
After seeing Jasper Johns’ painting Ventriloquist at the
HIDE/SEEK exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum, I became interested
in the painting’s coded messages and incorporation of references
to other paintings. The Rubin’s Vase, made from the profiles of
Johns and his partner Robert Rauschenberg, inspired me to make a
work that referenced both this work and my own relationship with
my partner, Amy.
In creating the silhouettes of our faces I was again reminded
of how androgynous our profiles looked, how femininity and
masculinity are policed in society, and of an infuriating
pamphlet I have in my collection of discarded library book
materials, the 1953 “Helping Boys and Girls Understand their Sex
Roles” by Milton Levine and Jean Seligman. In this text the
authors attempt to decode children’s behavior and give advice on
how to force rigid sex role obedience while warning that failure
to do so results in a variety of unpleasant outcomes, including
homosexuality. In my portrait, the ambiguous nature of the
figure-ground vase is a defiant contrast to the pamphlet’s
exultation of explicit heterosexual-normative sex roles. Our
pair of profiles stares down the tomboy section and reveals the
intimacy between us.
Amy’s artist statement:
In this contemporary artist’s book I juxtapose conversations
I’ve had with elementary students, inquiring about my gender,
with photos of myself. By making these conversations visible I
question the binary framing of gender, consider how to foster
dialogue about gender expression, and explore how gender is
framed in elementary classrooms and society. This work relates
to two themes of the HIDE/SEEK exhibition, in particular the
fluidity of gender and reflecting society’s attitudes toward the
constructed gender binary. This works relates to the goal of
the Queering the Museum project by making visible how, while
queer culture is often viewed as tangential in museums, history,
and society, queer persons experience queer culture and
perceptions of difference as a central feature permeating their
lived experiences.
-Holly A. Senn & Amy E. Ryken
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