Spacetaker's ARC will host "Additional Support," a group exhibit featuring paintings by Hagit Barkai , body casting sculptures by Kelley Devine and small metal sculptures by Jessica Jacobi. A closing reception will be held on Saturday, June 19th from 6-8PM.
About Additional Support:
Support: to be capable of bearing; withstand.
The body demands support due to numerous physical and psychical circumstances. As the body progresses through it’s lifetime, its natural framework is challenged, and the need for additional support is revealed through the body’s awkwardness, vulnerability, and visceral nature. In response, individuals and society create various tools to hide, enhance, or transform the body (i.e. undergarments, piercings, etc.), enabling it to function in an acceptable way within society.
Additional Support explores possible manifestations of such creations– if a body accepts society’s methods of support, is the body in turn accepted by society? The work demonstrates tension between acceptance of and repulsion to the body, calling into question the motivations behind such judgments and redefining the notion of “misfit.” In exploring the body’s incongruence with its surroundings, the three bodies of work represent failed attempts to reconcile the physical image of the body with self-image. The exhibition also plays with the artwork’s need for support to assume meaning: from the video and performances supporting the wearable art and the cast hangers giving a sense of the missing body, to the paintings negotiations with the frame.
