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| Ellen De Meutter Secrets and Lies oil on canvas |
Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego
“Secrets and Lies” : exhibition drawn from the museum’s
collection
Review by Cathy Breslaw
Secrets and Lies is an exhibition drawn from the
museum’s collection, including several new acquisitions. Centered around concepts of
disguise, ruse and revelations, the show includes painting, photography,
sculpture and installation. The show’s title is taken from Belgian painter
Ellen De Meutter’s painting of the same name.
Her painting of two gossiping figures, hints at the questions of what is
public or private, and what is fact or fiction.
Yasumasa Morimura’s “An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo”(2001), is one
of a series that took the artist ten years to create. A self portrait that is digitally manipulated,
the photo appears like a painting. Morimura reconstructs Kahlo’s image with costumes
and props, and questions gender, cultural and racial conventions. Al Wei Wei’s
“Marble Chair”(2010), is a sculptural installation carved from a single piece
of striated white marble. It is sculpted into the design of two traditional
yoke-backed Ming and Qing Dynasty chairs. Wei Wei examines China’s loss of
culture as it attempts to modernize itself.
Cindy Sherman’s photograph, “Untitled”(2000), transforms her own image
into a southern California typecast young woman who is tanned, blond, in sporty
clothing, wearing a jeweled tiara
referencing the “impossible ideal” found in airbrushed figures in magazines.
Kim Dingle’s painting “Untitled(Prisspaper with Blue Hair”(1998), is an oil on
wallpaper on wood, depicting toddlers running amok in the nursery, examining
stereotypes of childhood and innocence. Tina Barney’s “Jill and Polly in the
Bathroom”(1987), an Ektacolor Plus print, recalls Dutch genre painting while it
is depicting the domestic habits
of upper middle class women, questioning whether they are posing or acting. Larry Sultan’s Chronogenic
print “Tasha’s Third Film”(2002), is part of a series Sultan did related to the
culture surrounding the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley revealing a ‘porn’
star in an ordinary pose sitting around in curlers, hanging out in the living
room waiting to perform. The ‘white
cube’ in the center of the gallery features works by Allan Sekula,
photographer, filmmaker and critic whose work focused on social and political
realities of labor, protest movements, and global trade. Sekula’s “Untitled
Slide Sequence”(1972) reveal 25
photographs of workers leaving the General Dynamics Convair Division
Aerospace Factory in San Diego at the end of a day. His photographs
incorporate a sense of the culture and
historical moment of the military-industrial complex. These and many other artists’ works comprise
this thought provoking and complex exhibition.
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