Dear Erin Hart, is artist Jessamyn Lovell’s response to being the victim of identity theft. In an act of retribution, Lovell pursued a woman who was using her stolen identity and made art of her process. Using a camera and occupying the varied roles of victim, stalker, investigator, artist, spy, and vigilante, Lovell offers a body of work that touches on contemporary concerns of surveillance and selfhood within the information age. For an artist whose previous work engaged questions of identity, Dear Erin Hart, represents Lovell’s continued examination of self as it relates to a “data-self” that exists amidst the chaotic unfolding of real life.
The exhibition deploys photographs, video, and printed documentation to tell the story of a crime and two women who exist on either side of the bundle of data that defines them. Through her pursuit of Erin Hart, Lovell maps an understanding of both her own and Hart’s identity and the course of events that caused their live to become entwined. The photographs are stylistically anxious, often blurred and askew, suggesting an unsettled haste on the part of both the photographer and her subject. Oblique discoveries and glimpses of evidence seem to circle a host of underlying questions without establishing a core understanding of the perpetrator, the victim, or the implied witness. Despite our preoccupation with the invasive reach of surveillance and information technology, Dear Erin Hart suggests that human identity – real, digital, or otherwise – remains an elusive target.
FESTIVAL
As part of Denver’s Month of Photography
February 27 – March 28, 2015
Dear Erin Hart by Jessamyn Lovell
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
1513 Boulder Street
Denver CO 80211
www.cpacphoto.org
www.mopdenver.com
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Role Play is a group exhibition curated by Rupert Jenkins and Conor King for CPAC and the 2015 Month of Photography (MoP). The show emphasizes self-portraits by artists who embrace themes related to transformation of self, the exploration of social traits such as historical reenactments, race and gender identity issues, or simply for play.
Role Play features works by international, regional, and local photographers. It will be shown in RedLine’s Project Space alongside “Playing with Beauty” curated by Mark Sink, showing in RedLine’s Exhibition Hall. The themes of both shows are aligned with RedLine’s ‘Play It Forward,’ a series of exhibitions, partnerships, and public programs that explore the intersection of art and play.
The show extends a line of inquiry that is central to the history of photography, dating back to the medium’s earliest days with “Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man” by Hippolyte Bayard (1840). Claude Calhoun (active 1910-1930s), who pioneered self-portraiture to examine gender roles, was a forerunner of conceptual artists like Cindy Sherman, whose “Untitled Film Stills” series (1977-1980) initiated contemporary photography’s involvement with post-modernism and theoretical discourse.
Artists: Chan-Hyo BAE (London, UK), Nabil Boutros (Paris, France), Nina Katchadourian (Brooklyn, NY), Stacy Kranitz (Los Angeles, CA), Sally Stockhold (Denver, CO), Stacey Tyrell (Brooklyn, NY), Allison Welch (Madison, WI), Jordin Paige Wommack (Denver, CO).
FESTIVAL
As part of Denver’s Month of Photography
Role Play
March 14 – April 25, 2015
RedLine Project Space
2350 Arapahoe Street
Denver, CO 80205
Presented by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC).
http://redlineart.org
www.cpacphoto.org
