We don’t often get to experience the
stunned awareness in realizing that what stands (or hangs) before us isn’t
really what it seems. Recently, for us, it was realizing that what looked like
an actual dress stretched out and pinned to the wall was, in fact, a digital
photograph — complete with all the requisite shadows and wrinkles.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย It
is appropriate that this seemingly tangible dress is the inspiration behind a
series of photographs and sculptural objects that comprise Seamingly, a seamless exhibition of seemly new work by Rachel J.
Siegel.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Siegel
is interested in how to address cultural markers of
feminine allure. In this exhibition, she uses a hot-pink 1960s party dress
retrieved from a thrift store as her leitmotif.
We initially encountered “the dress” in the form of small, hand-drawn,
scanned, and inkjet-printed facsimiles ironed on to gauzy curtains that front
the entrance to the exhibition. The look and feeling of the space is intimate,
private even, as if we’ve just transgressed the threshold of a lady’s boudoir, oh-so-alluringly drawing us
into the little gallery space.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Just
as we had to reconsider the dress-that-wasn’t, viewing the contents of Siegel’s
exhibition as a whole also encourages us to reconsider a variety of
contemporary concerns, ranging from “ideals of feminine beauty” and “the
essence of femaleness” to the role of the body and memory in artistic work from
a feminist perspective.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย As a sculpture, the dress is literally inverted and
suspended. Without a body — specifically, the female body — the dress isn’t a dress anymore but rather a shape
with color, texture, and volume. Similarly, the large and seductively beautiful
digital print of the dress also challenges our conception of what, exactly, is
being represented.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Meanwhile, in a selection of photographic prints, we again
see the dress, but this time, a woman’s body shapes it. Yet, the woman is not
seen as proudly wearing her pretty pink dress but is instead fighting to get
out of it, as if it were a straitjacket. This dress doesn’t have any armholes;
they have been seamed closed.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย These photographs are eerily reminiscent of 19th-century
medical documentation, especially those photographs used by Jean Martin Charcot
to illustrate the physiognomy of hysteria. Interestingly, Charcot, who was one of Sigmund Freud’s teachers,
also saw himself as an artist.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Just like in art where women are seen more as objects than
the subjects, Charcot’s images created “scientific” narratives — narratives
that once again subjugated women as “pure” examples of a clinical malady.
Siegel’s work rewrites, or better yet, writes over these issues and
simultaneously exposes the female subject to a judgmental eye.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Charcot’s images were meant to give closure or resolution
to the narrative of hysteria. The narrative in Siegel’s work does not pretend
to be science nor is it simply fiction. There is no attempt to give the viewer
closure. Rather, questions just pile up on each other.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Her work curves and circles around issues of representation
of the female body, femininity, pinkness, or sewing as yet another example of
women’s work, woman’s identity. There is no plot.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย The questions weave in and out, never providing the viewer
with a useable object or an answer. It is as if her work addresses some place in between the stitch, a place where
gender, and social and medical narratives exist in the first place.
Seamingly is on display at The Gallery at the Art & Music Library, Rush Rhees
Library, University of Rochester, River Campus
through Thursday, June 17. Hours: Monday, Thursday, and Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.;
Tuesday and Wednesday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. 275-4476 | From June 19 through Monday,
July 19, Seamingly, Again will be at the Rochester Contemporary’s
Satellite site, the Sibley Centre Window, 228 East Main Street, Rochester
(across from the Liberty Pole). Visible at all hours.
This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2004.
