Jacqueline Fraser
A CLEARER PORTRAIT OF THE LOST BOYS [[in eleven parts deftly and eleven details of straining]]
October 11 – November 18, 2002
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
97 North 9th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
T: 718-782-4100 F: 718-782-4800
gallery@priskajuschkafineart.com
sculptures and drawings
Opening reception: Friday, October 11, 6- 9 pm
image: Jacqueline Fraser, A Portrait of That Sly Back Pushed So Fierce Aghast [[eyes glancing]] {{Afghanistan, Tibet, Singapore}}, Mixed media, 2002, 94 x 47″
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to announce Jacqueline Frasers first New York show since her 2001 exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. This new installation, titled A clearer portrait of the Lost Boys [[in eleven parts deftly and eleven details of straining]], expands on and clarifies the themes in that earlier show without diluting any of their power to shock.
Fraser says the key word to this show is “gorgeous,” an ongoing interest of hers. In the last year she has been in the Venice Biennale; the Yokohama Triennial and the New Museum, New York.
Look closely, for example, at the sheets of fabric pinned to the wall like specimens. The beauty of these refined prints and shimmering moirées comes across as a mean joke in a flawed world, a world of refugees, of children orphaned by civil wars or environmental disasters. In the face of it all, how has anyone managed to sustain such a stubborn belief in elegance?
Thankfully, Fraser has. Each of her works is a gift of splendor to prejudices victims and perpetrators (the division between them forever blurred) across the globe. Steel wires, alive with the spirit of Calder and Cocteau, sketch these boys in profile, boys who have lost their way, lost their hope or even lost their lives. Meanwhile, a sparkling rescue squad of women, one for each boy, marches across the opposite wall like a parade of milkmaids.
Frasers text tells the tale in an oblique Victorian poetry. Behind the formal voice of these circumlocutions, though, a sense of outrage simmers, ready to boil over.
Its fury without a target. Or rather, with millions of targets. Over the years Fraser has carefully pruned her work of any cultural specificity, at times using multiple languages, other times appending lists of country names to suggest multiple points of entry. Surprisingly, the effect has been not globalization but individuation. In their inscrutability, these works do not convey a universal suffering so much as they do one womans ongoing struggle to reconcile it with all the lavish beauty in the world.
— Craig Garrett
Join Priska Juschka and the artist at the gallery for an opening reception
on Friday, October 11th, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.
Gallery hours: Thursday through Monday 12:00 to 6:00 PM or by appointment.
For more information and artist’s statement please go to: www.priskajuschkafineart.net
