featured gallery for August 2005

Body-Ography

Bodies are everywhere. We see them all the time and they say a lot about people, about us and about the world in which we live.


I am interested in the ways the body as a form exists, the way it moves through time, space and particular locations. I am fascinated by the ways in which bodies -- yours, mine, hers, his, theirs -- get re-worked. I like the ways in which we use them to perform ideas of ourselves, and the way bodies often morph into things we do not recognize.

There is a lot of information mapped on the body and we "read" and interpret this material regularly. Beauty, truth, pain, joy, suffering, health, power, anonymity and weakness -- these are the elements that move us to think, feel, act. They also repulse and frighten us and sometimes we look away.

My short selection of works from the Visual AIDS files is simply a brief meditation. It takes the shape of what I would like to call a "body-ography," or the individual and collective stories conveyed by images of the human figure.

Each artist here has captured the body in a different context -- from Remerro Trotsky Williams' mighty image of vulnerable strength and Yolanda's "in your face" shot to the pain inside of Wilmer Velez's graceful image and Martin Wong's cityscape featuring the icon Bruce Lee.

Take a closer look at these images. Hone in on the bodies. What do they reveal? What does it conceal? What is the body-ography evident?

Curator

Isolde Brielmaier

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Isolde Brielmaier is a New York-based curator and critic focusing on international contemporary art and popular culture and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Vassar College. Brielmaier is the co-Founder and co-Director, along with Trevor Schoonmaker, of The Brooklyn Institute of Contemporary Art (BICA -- www.bicany.org), slated to open in 2007. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University. Brielmaier is curator of several exhibitions including, Maximum Flavor (Atlanta, 2005); Embodiments: Lalla Essaydi (Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta, 2005); Rewind/Re-Cast/Review at the Berrie Arts Center (Feb 2005, New Jersey), and co-Curator of the CityScapes -- New Territories Exhibition Program at ARCO with Kenichi Kondo, Simon Njami, Christopher Miles and Nelson Brissac (Madrid, Spain, 2006), the Panorama Program at Eyebeam with Tumelo Mosaka and Mahen Bonetti (Fall 2005, New York City), Engaging the Camera at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art (October 2004, Atlanta), and Salad Days, a group exhibition at Artists Space (July 2004, New York City). Brielmaier is the author of "Re-Position / Re-Present: Notes on Contemporary Photography of the Maghreb" (NAZAR: Photographs from the Arab World, Noorderlicht, The Fries Museum, The Netherlands, 2004) and Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa 1948-1953 (University of Washington Press, 2004) and has written and lectured on international art and photography for PARKETT Series with Contemporary Artists, Aperture Magazine, Nka: Journal for Contemporary African Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Brooklyn Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC School of the Visual Arts, Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Harvard University, Howard University, New York University, Essence magazine and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Brielmaier is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from institutions including the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.