Thursday, March 28, 2013

Emma McCagg: Ordinary People

 



Emma McCagg: Ordinary People
Curated by Raúl Zamudio Taylor
March 22- May 22, 2013
Pristine Galerie
Monterrey, Mexico

Pristine Galerie is pleased to present the solo exhibition of New York City-based artist Emma McCagg titled Emma McCagg: Ordinary People. The exhibition’s title is culled from the multiple Oscar awarded film by the same name and consists of painting, video, work-on-paper and a photographic installation. 

The paintings consist of childhood images of actors and Pop singers who died from drug or alcohol overdoses: the innocence and pathos of the portraits belying the tragedy of their future. Lush and gestural, the portraits are formatted to look like a Kodak snapshot of the ‘50s and ‘60s replete with a stenciled date that coincides with the age of the sitter in the year the photograph was taken. The titles refer to the cause of death and attendant sensationalistic descriptions announced in tabloid media. One painting is of Amy Winehouse at age 6, titled Death by Misadventure; another is Michael Jackson at age 10, titled Death by Propofol: and yet another is of a smiling Heath Ledger at age 2, titled The Joker Laughs No More. The photographic installation consists of well-known individuals of the New York literary world including poets and novelists that sat for the artist as models.  The exhibition will also include the single-channel video projection titled Ordinary People (2012). This consists of a taped performance by actors whose identities have been occluded; yet the video’s soundtrack is revealing of its conceptual undercurrent as it plays the ‘80s New-Wave song by Animotion titled Obsession.



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