Opening Reception of Two Shows: Peeps/Pistoletto May 15, 2009

The James Gallery presents tandem exhibitions inspired by current research at the Graduate Center.

Amy Herzog's "Peeps" grows out of her work on peep-show pornography and the inhabitation of public and private space. The peep-show install features a mix of vintage gay and straight porn film, as well as current artworks that make inspired use of the genre. It also suggests that the self-consciousness and frisson incited by the experience of much contemporary art may owe something to the furtive viewing habits pornography has long attracted.

Romy Golan's research on Michelangelo Pistoletto's earliest mirror paintings, suggests that those novel experiments in reflection and virtual painterly space were amplified through carefully composed installation photographs. These photographs, originally circulated in architecture and design magazines, ironically fix an upscale Italian, postwar preoccupation with decor and cultural identity only fleetingly reflected in the actual mirror paintings.

Official Website: http://www.artslant.com/ny/events/show/49457-opening-of-two-shows-peepspistoletto