GARDEN PARTY/ARTS PRESENTS: HUZZY

Come join us for our first exhibition!
+++ONE DAY ONLY+++

HUZZY
Featuring work by:
TRACY THOMASON
ALYSE RONAYNE
E.E. IKELER

HUZZY is the first GARDEN PARTY/ARTS exhibition, and organizing it has been a great excuse to work and show with the artists Alyse Ronayne and Tracy Thomason. This exhibition is a collaboration between myself, Ronayne, Thomason, and the co-organizer of GP/A, Ariel Roman.
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Come join us for our first exhibition!
+++ONE DAY ONLY+++

HUZZY
Featuring work by:
TRACY THOMASON
ALYSE RONAYNE
E.E. IKELER

HUZZY is the first GARDEN PARTY/ARTS exhibition, and organizing it has been a great excuse to work and show with the artists Alyse Ronayne and Tracy Thomason. This exhibition is a collaboration between myself, Ronayne, Thomason, and the co-organizer of GP/A, Ariel Roman.

Our show takes its title from John Chamberlain’s 1961 work of the same name. In many ways, “Huzzy” is typical Chamberlain sculpture: folded, painted steel is fit together in an amorphous shape. What distinguishes it from other Chamberlains is the inclusion of a piece of women’s lingerie, intertwined with the transformed car parts.

In his 2008 essay, Immoderate Couplings: Transformations and Genders in John Chamberlain’s Work, David Getsy argues that Chamberlain’s insistence on a sexual metaphor in the reading of his work has been routinely overlooked. Because the coupling of re-purposed car parts should be seen as a sexual fitting, Getsy posits that a viewer will naturally question the genders of the conjoined pieces. And, since the gendering of materials does not conform to heteronormative roles, Getsy claims a trans and queer reading of the work.

The word “huzzy” (like “hussy”) is slang for an impure woman. Thus, it is an appropriate title for a show of three female artists who often use the co-mingling of elements historically described in terms of their purity: painting, sculpture, and abstraction.

While the gendered use and transformation of materials is the primary common thread, there is a major difference between Chamberlain and the works in our show. With Thomason, Ronayne, and myself, materials always seem to arrive already gendered, even when it is not clear what gender. With my work, I see this in the use of chains and mesh. With Thomason, it’s L.A. Looks hair gel, and with Ronayne, it’s purposefully decorative use of pink/gold spray paint on sheet metal, among other things.

To conclude, I’d simply like to note that this show is occurring shortly after the close of “Choices”, the Guggenheim’s Chamberlain retrospective- on the heels of his death at the end of last year. HUZZY clearly owes much to Getsy’s essay, and I hope it is a positive precursor to future GARDEN PARTY/ARTS shows, where artists can exhibit, discuss, and write about their work critically and in relation to feminist and queer dialogues.

--E.E. Ikeler

http://gardenpartyarts.com
http://saic.academia.edu/DavidGetsy/Papers/105226/Immoderate_Couplings_Transformations_and_Genders_in_John_Chamberlains_Work

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