Image: Jen Davis, “December 18, 2009.”
Jen Davis’ “Webcam” series is included in the exhibition “The Play and Staging of the Self: Five Photographers on Identity” at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York City.
[The exhibition] explores the construction of identity and its ongoing evolution, with a special emphasis on the play and staging of the self. Here, the act or experience, rather than biological history, is highlighted. As boundaries between socially and culturally constructed identities, including body modifications, are reexamined within diverse arrays of sexual and gender groups, the malleability of the self is revealed, and a new transparency of the function, role and position of identity emerges.
In this assembly of photographs, the construction of identity varies as radically as the modes of dress in Chris Rijksen’s “Gender as a Performance” series, in which the artist executes a fluid performance of self-portraiture in both traditionally masculine and feminine attire. In both Laia Abril’s “Asexuals Project” and Olya Ivanova’s “Weirdo” the individual is presented as part of a group identity in order to gain visibility, understanding, and legitimacy in an increasingly networked age. In contrast are scenes from Lindsay Morris’ “You are You” series, wherein gender-variant boys play out their interpretations of femininity at a gender-noncomforming summer camp, and Jen Davis’ “Webcam” series, in which Davis pairs self-portraits and screenshots of “Alexi,” an invented object of desire. While diverse in both their approach and aesthetics, each series casts a fresh glance on the making and experience of identity in an ever-changing social landscape.
Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
560 Broadway #603
New York, NY 10012
http://souslesetoilesgallery.net/exhibition/on+identity
Opening Reception:
September 10, 2014
6.00 p.m. – 8.00 p.m.
Browse Jen Davis’ “Webcam” series
Browse all of Jen Davis’ work at ClampArt
Blog post by:
Brian Paul Clamp, Director