Friday, October 20, 2006

Tierney Gearon & Lena Cronqvist


Last night we went to a pair of gallery openings for artists I had never heard of but who seemed thematically linked.

First was photographer Tierney Gearon, at the Yossi Milo Gallery. Gearon apparently faced some controversy in the past, when police warned that two photographs of naked children displayed at the Saatchi gallery could be seized under indecency laws. This show focuses on her mother, and again, some of the images - of the artist and her mother together in the nude, violating the border that is laid down when children grow up into sexual beings - will make viewers uncomfortable. Gearon has captured more than just her relationship with her mother, though, because each photograph is a complete narrative landscape.
Second was Swedish artist Lena Cronqvist at the Nancy Margolis Gallery. Cronqvist, who is in her late sixties, has painted a series of spare self-portraits, sometimes holding puppets or marionettes.

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