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Iris Exhibition Menu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2, 1998
"Iris": a Collaborative Installation
January 10 through February 21, 1999
Opening reception: Wed., Jan. 13 at 4:30 pm
Contact: Karen Rapp
951/827-3755
krapp@pop.ucr.edu
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Opening Page
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Contents
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Online Tour
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Video Preview
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Contributors
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Essay: Pain is Female
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Essay: Salt and Femaleness
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Essay: Looking Back
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Essay: The Voice of Iris
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The Legend of Iris: Challenging Myths and Monuments
Artists Devora Neumark and Wende Bartley are collaborating to present a "live" installation at the Sweeney Art Gallery that articulates the biblical narrative of Lot's wife Iris into a contemporary context. Legend has it that Iris was forbidden to look back upon the destruction of Sodom. Traditionally Iris' backward glance has been interpreted as a disobedient act that resulted in her punishment: being turned into a pillar of salt. In re-reading this story, Neumark and Bartley challenge the hierarchical voice of the Bible by claiming Lot's wife as a model of compassion. Understanding the divine as compassionate rather than authoritarian, the warning to not look back could also be re-interpreted as God's attempt to spare Iris the paralyzing weight of witnessing violence. She may well have turned into a pillar of salt as a result of her own tears and their overwhelming effect, and not as a punitive measure.
Emphasizing process and collaboration, Neumark and Bartley underscore the need for a multiplicity of voices and plead against the static and universalizing nature of traditional myths and monuments. They ask, "How does one know what it means to be frozen into a pillar of salt, if we cannot recognize within ourselves the longing to turn back and the inability to go forward?" Individuals can gauge their own responses as they encounter and participate in the installation that comprises several tons of salt, multiple soundscapes and images of waves continually projected onto surfaces within the Gallery.
"Iris" brings together Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist and social activist Devora Neumark with Toronto-based electroacoustic composer Wende Bartley. Neumark's recent durational interventions and installations have engaged with issues of community, mourning, ritual and memorialization. Emphasizing process, Neumark has explored metaphors of temporality, transition, and transformation through embodied experience. She has participated in exhibitions, residencies and presentations of her interdisciplinary work nationally and internationally. Neumark has also lectured across North America and Europe and was co-organizer of the 1994 symposium "Visual Art and Jewish Identity: A Contemporary Experience" at the Sadye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montreal. She has served for the last three years as Vice President of Auberge Shalom pour femmes, the only Kosher shelter and centre for women victims of conjugal violence in Canada.
Wende Bartley has been investigating sound images important in the collective stories of women developing new timbral textures while giving voice to women's cultural experience. Her more recent work has concerned itself with explorations of voice as sacred communicator, creating a field of sonic energy through the connection of breath and voice, awakening the knowledge of body and experiences of healing through sound vibration.
A multi-panelist discussion and reception organized by the Sweeney Art Gallery will be held on Wednesday, January 13 at 4:30 pm. Panelists include UCR Faculty and the artists: Amelia Jones, history of art; Tiffany Lopez, English; Devora Neumark, artist; Erika Suderburg, studio art; Katherine Warren, Director Sweeney Art Gallery; and Deborah Wong, Music.
The Sweeney Art Gallery is located across from the UCR campus in Watkins House, at 3701 Canyon Crest Drive, Riverside, California. Hours are Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and weekends, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
Visit our website: http://sweeney.ucr.edu
Call 951/827-3755 for more information or for exhibition images
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