Interim
Interim, Kelly’s second large-scale installation, which includes Part I: Corpus, Part II: Pecunia, Part III: Historia, and Part IV: Potestas, explores themes concerned with the construction of feminine subjectivity. In Corpus, the artist’s first person narratives explore fantasies of aging, filtered through discourses of fashion, medicine and fiction. Each group of six panels is named after one of the five passionate attitudes that psychiatrist Jean-Martin Charcot attributed to hysterical women in the late-nineteenth century. Extase, Menacé, Supplication, Érotisme and Appel are each represented by an item of clothing folded or tied three different ways, one to accompany each narrative. The shadows cast by the photo laminates underscore the artist’s avoidance of figurative representation, and strategic use of the indexical sign. Pecunia evokes the problematic relation to money, while Potestas exposes the subtle encoding of power in everyday life, and Historia reflects on women’s time. |
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| Interim, 1984 - 1989, Installation in four parts Background left, Postestas, Background right, Corpus Foreground, Historia Dimensions Variable Installation View, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1990 |
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| Interim Part I: Corpus, 1984 - 85 Laminated photo positive, silkscreen, acrylic on Plexiglas 30 panels, 36 x 48 x 2 inches each |
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| Detail, Menace, 1 of 6 panels Laminated photo positive, silkscreen, acrylic on Plexiglas 30 panels total, 36 x 48 x 2 inches |
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| Detail, Menace, 1 of 6 panels Laminated photo positive, silkscreen, acrylic on Plexiglas 30 panels total, 36 x 48 x 2 inches |
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| Detail, Menace, 1 of 6 panels Laminated photo positive, silkscreen, acrylic on Plexiglas 30 panels total, 36 x 48 x 2 inches |
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| Interim Part II: Pecunia, 1989 Installation View, New Museum of Contemporary Art Silkscreen on galvanized steel 20 units, 16 x 6.5 x 11.5 inches each Collection, Vancouver Art Gallery |
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| Detail, Filia, 1 of 4 sections Silkscreen on galvanized steel 20 units, 16 x 6.5 x 11.5 inches each |
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| Detail, Filia, 1 of 4 sections Silkscreen on galvanized steel 20 units, 16 x 6.5 x 11.5 inches each |
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| Detail, Filia, 1 of 4 sections Silkscreen on galvanized steel 20 units, 16 x 6.5 x 11.5 inches each |
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| Interim, Part III: Historia, 1989 Oxidized steel, silkscreen, stainless steel on wood base 4 units, 61 x 36 x 29 ins. each Collection, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina |
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| Interim, Part IV: Potestas, 1989 Etching, brass and mild steel (edition of 2) 14 units, 100 x 114 x 2 ins. overall dimensions Collection, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Collection, Helsinki City Art Museum |
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