FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 1981
IDA APPLEBROOG
February 7-March 7, 1981
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts opens the downtown gallery on February 7th with an exhibition by Ida Applebroog. The downtown gallery is located in Soho at 31-33 Mercer Street between Canal and Grand Streets.
Applebroog's work has long been concerned with "performance", not only as actors and stage, but also that a performance can become an object or an artifact, something that exists in a space as well as time – a series of images of frozen theater.
The underlying theme is the condition of human emotions, incidents out of our everyday lives, with lovers, family, friends, and with humor never far below the surface.
These commonplace, almost primeval situations are played out through various media that depict repeated scenes resembling puppets on a proscenium stage. This cinematic effect is repeated several times, forming a sequence of unchanging images with an occasional caption: "Sure, I'm sure," "I feel sorry for you," "Take off your panties."
Her cast of characters consist of puppet-like actors, prone to glibness and frozen gestures, evoking feelings of alienation and isolation. Their communication is stilted; they act, but do not interact. Each image is followed by several shadow-less after images. The notion of the "original", followed by its after-image, emphasizes the visual memory that remains within the observer after viewing an image.
In her books, the same scene is repeated within each book, interspersed with text. The entire "performance" culminates in a series of blank pages, each image becomes only an imprint.
This concern with certain aspects of voyerism is carried to its ultimate in Applebroog's "Window Pieces." Here, the artist uses large three-dimensional wall stagings to set the drama. These stagings, made of rhoplex on vellum, are cut and folded in such a way, that both the figures and their shadows are visible to the viewer. From staged events, presented for an audience, Applebroog has moved us to being spectators, intruding upon the intimate acts of people observed – through the windows. There's some embarrassment here – we're caught in the act – Peeping Toms.
Applebroog doesn't say what the scenes behind the windows mean. The answers have to come from within ourselves – these are scenes from our own lives, we read our own dialogues into them, interpreting them from our individual experiences. So the cycle is completed and repeats itself; we, the spectators, become a projective instrument for insight.
This is Ida Applebroog's first show with the Ronald Feldman Gallery. She has had individual exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the Williams College of Art, P.S.1, Franklin Furnace, and the Rotterdam Arts Foundation, among others. She has exhibited in numerous group shows.
The public is invited to the opening of the new gallery on Saturday, February 7th. A reception for the artist will be held from 5 to 7 PM on that evening. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 AM to 6 PM. Admission is free.
For further information and photographs contact Lynn Cassaniti 212-249-4050
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