Death need not be final according to the group exhibition currently on view at BRIC. Employing objects commonly associated with death—a cemetery, flowers, shrouds, and memorials—the ten female-identifying artists showcased in Death Becomes Her demonstrate that the act of mourning the dearly departed can serve as a pathway to "self-discovery, inquiry, and introspection."
Death Becomes Her installation view. Mimi Bai's Conjuring a future full of pasts (2020) is in the foreground and three images from Keisha Scarville's Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows) are displayed on the left.
Catalina Ouyang, past imperfect (Lipotes vexillifer), 2019, and past imperfect (Psephurus gladius), 2019
Nona Faustine’s self-portrait series inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone was shot amongst tombs and mausoleums at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. The cinematic photos feature Faustine portraying Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Dressed in black or golden cloaks, she mourns and waits for her daughter Persephone who was forced into marriage with Hades, the god of the dead and the underworld.
(L-R) Nona Faustine's Demeter in Mourning, Magic power divine beauty and grace, Isis, all 2020
Nona Faustine, Isis, 2020
Kim Brandt, Untitled (Greenwood), 2019
Projected onto a screen is footage of Kim Brandt’s Untitled (Greenwood), performed at the cemetery last summer as part of a series presented by Green-Wood in partnership with Pioneer Works. Performers interacted at the cemetery’s circular Cedar Dell in an examination of relationships among the living in a space that memorializes the dead.
Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)
Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)
Detail of Heidi Lau's ceramic works
Inspired by Taoist and folk mythology, Heidi Lau’s ceramic sculptures represent "silenced histories" or "ritual objects, funerary monuments, and fossilized creatures" that have been lost or transformed over time. Rachel Grobstein’s miniature sculptures depict actual roadside memorials, featuring tiny recreations of a ghost bike, candles, stuffed animals, and flowers left on streets and highways to commemorate lost loved ones.
Rachel Grobstein, Ghost Bike, 2019
Rachel Grobstein, Hwy. 285, 2018
Rachel Grobstein, William, Bushwick Avenue, 2018
Rachel Grobstein, Rt. 46, 2018
On select Fridays and Saturdays, Gyun Hur will be on site to perform I wouldn’t know any other way, an installation that features the artist resting in bright yellow dust she creates by shredding silk flowers into a powder that blankets the floor. The piece symbolizes "impermanence and assimilation," Hur’s family and homes, both in her native South Korea and in Atlanta, where she grew up.
Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020
Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020
Death Becomes Her at Gallery at BRIC House
Two artists will be featured at Green-Wood Cemetery in programs presented in conjunction with the BRIC exhibit. McKendree Key will host 5 x 10 @ The Catacombs, discussions about death and dying on Saturdays in March (14, 21, 28). Freya Powell’s immersive performance piece Only Remains Remain will honor the unidentified migrants buried in mass graves in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Texas (Saturday, April 11).
Encouraging discussion and reflection, Death Becomes Her is an enlightening meditation on death that asserts we can learn about ourselves by confronting loss.
Death Becomes Her
Gallery at BRIC House, 647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view February 20 through April 19
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