CURRENT

Solo(s) Project House presents:
SHOSHANNA WEINBERGER: 
WHAT MAKES MY HOTTENTOT SO HOT
January 27, 2012 – March 2, 2012

Opening Reception:
Friday, January 27, 2012
7 – 11 pm

Download Press Release HERE
info@solosprojecthouse.com
www.solosprojecthouse.com
www.shoshanna.info

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’s presented body of work is driven by the history of exposé, beauty and form of 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 Barton 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 and currently resides in Newark, New Jersey. She completed her undergrad at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduate studies at Yale School of Art. Exhibiting for the past decade, Weinberger’s work has been glorified across the country at the Spertus Museum in Chicago, IL, The Jones Center for Contemporary Art in Austin, Texas and the Carol Jazzar Gallery 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.

contact:
Rebecca Jampol, Gallery Director
rj@solosprojecthouse.com