Join Solo(s) Project House for an evening of Q & A with featured artist, Shoshanna Weinberger. Her current solo exhibition, “What makes My Hottentot so Hot” is on display from January 27, 2012 through March 2, 2012.

Join us on Livestream: http://www.livestream.com/shoshannaweinberger?t=939997

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ABOUT
Solo(s) Project House presents Shoshanna Weinberger: “What makes My Hottentot so Hot.” The exhibition will live from January 27, 2012 – March 2, 2012 and will open with a reception, Friday, January 27th from 7 – 11pm.

Weinberger presents a body of work that is driven by the history of exposé, beauty and form inspired by the real-life story of Saartjie Baartman the “Hottentot Venus.”

“I find Baartman’s life both captivating and horrific; living as a specimen perpetuating the myth of “otherness” that can still be found today fascinates me as a woman and an artist.”

Weinberger identifies with Baartman physiologically and politically, making personal connections of awkwardness as a female growing-up in a society obsessed with attaining beauty result in imagery that depicts this as distorted excess. Malformed and decapitated bodies, with long cornrow braids, un-kept locks, and pigtails, mutations of multiple-mouths, nipples, breasts, and buttocks, create a sense of familiarity, confusion, humor and tension.

Contemporary connections of Baartman’s subjugation are found in references to modern-day strip-club dancers, West-Indian Dancehall performers, cultural stereotypes, Hollywood icons, prostitutes and circus sideshow freaks to name a few. These figures are tangled, hogtied and suffocated with props associated with femininity such as thongs, bras, high-heels and jewelry. Forms are placed on a scallop shell akin to the mythological Birth of Venus story. Incorporating Botticelli’s Birth of Venus scallop shell into a new psychology of presenting the birth of femininity found in bars and graffiti stalls declaring love found or lost. These drawings allude to the psychology of coexisting in human and animal form as well as forms grotesque and sexualized.

Weinberger was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to Jamaican-mother and American-father. She currently resides in Newark, New Jersey. She completed her undergrad degree at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a masters degree from Yale University, Yale School of Art. Exhibiting for the past decade, Weinberger’s work has been glorified across the country at the Spertus Museum in Chicago, Illinois; The Jones Center for Contemporary Art in Austin, Texas; and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida just to name a few. She has also been featured in the National Biennial Exhibition National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston in 2006 and 2008.

http://solosprojecthouse.com/shoshannaweinberger/
www.shoshanna.info

ABOUT the Solo(s) Project House
The original Latin and Greek roots of PROJECT mean “something that comes before anything else happens”, and that is precisely what Solo(s) Project House is in a nutshell; evolving projects around a completed one. A space where gallery and studio are elbow to elbow, where the rigors of creation are coupled with the satisfaction of completion. The gallery is a sound stage upon which the house residents can imagine their months of creativity displayed from beginning to end. A true partner in the exhibit process, the artists are commissioned with a curatorial role that gives the visitor a 360 degree view of the creators vision. Far from an original white walled space, SPH is a home for experimental installations, avante-garde performance art and a myriad of media art. With an ever evolving pool of artists from various cultural and personal experiences SPH is a true melting pot of artistic expression.