|
|
Buddha Bum and Burning City: Two multimedia projects by Vera Lehndorff a.k.a. Veruschka 
|
|
Closing Reception: followed by a film screening co-presented by Secret Cinema:
|
|
The Galleries at Moore College
are pleased to present Buddha Bum & Burning City: Two multimedia projects by
Vera Lehndorff a.k.a. Veruschka. The exhibition comprises a series of black
and white photographs entitled Ash Self-portraits (1998) and two video
installations from the 1990s, following Lehndorff’s collaborative work with
painter and photographer Holger Trülzsch, which have been reconceived for the
show. Reveling in science fiction and the grittiness of post-industrial urban
life and responding to a global climate of conflict fueled by war and
environmental malaise, Buddha Bum and Burning City depict an eerie
portrait of a city in an apocalyptic world. Initially presented at MoMA/P.S. 1
in 2001, the works constitute the second segment of a two-part exhibition
co-organized by Arcadia University Art Gallery (formerly Beaver College Art
Gallery) and the Galleries at Moore.
A large-scale projection showing
the destruction of a model city built from cement blocks and accompanied by an
ambient soundtrack, Burning City exploits our impulse to read it as
documentary footage, expressing our familiarity with the mass mediation of such
images of devastation and the complex mixture of both awe and grief that we
derive from repeated viewing.
Presented on multiple monitors
and eschewing a linear narrative structure, Buddha Bum reinserts a human
presence that is absent in the continual fire that destroys the desolate,
flame-licked buildings that dominate Burning City. A dreamscape walk
along derelict streets in Brooklyn in which Lehndorff adopts multiple
personas—by turn a mystic, a vagrant, and a deity—Buddha Bum considers
the intimate relationship of each figure to its surroundings. Foregoing the
labor-intensive virtuosity of the trompe l’oeil body-paintings that
defined her performance works from the 1970s and ‘80s (on view at Arcadia
University Art Gallery, February 11–March 16), Lehndorff attires these
individual characters in makeshift garments that symbolically reference the
rebellious youth and itinerant populations that populate the streets. Covered in
graffiti tags and dressed in worn clothing sprinkled with exhaust, dust, and
litter, these figures—while retaining their human forms and
identities—physically embody the urban landscape. Throughout her career, Lehndorff has synthesized surrealism, fashion photography, and mythology to call into question the physical, social, and spiritual boundaries that separate and alienate the body from the architectural planning that organizes modern life. An ongoing project whose elasticity allows it to respond to global events, the current manifestation of “Buddha Bum & Burning City” is a timely meditation on the effectiveness of images of ruin and destitution, and how they can be employed as social commentary, especially in the existing political conditions in the United States. In addition to the exhibition, the Galleries at Moore will screen Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), which features Veruschka the fashion model as herself. At the beginning of the movie, Veruschka is engaged in an erotic photo shoot with the high fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings), offering viewers a voyeuristic peek into the process that transforms her into an iconic image to be appropriated by the camera. An exciting and risqué portrait of the fashion world just beginning to develop in London in the sixties, the movie parallels Veruschka’s own career and explores issues of representation that would interest the artist in subsequent years. This exhibition in two parts has been curated by Sandra Firmin, Curatorial Fellow at Arcadia University Art Gallery, a position generously supported by the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Buddha Bum & Burning City is supported by grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Friends of Arcadia University Art Gallery, and the Friends of the Galleries at Moore.
|
|
Galleries Directory |
Levy Gallery Artists Registry |
Publications & Artists |
Email
|