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