Marble statues are full of myths; myths of greatness, myths of whiteness, myths of the idealized body. Mighty Greek heroes and Roman nobility have murdered their wives, abducted and raped the innocent, and are immortalized in stone. Like Pygmalion, man grew enamored with his own creation and had the sculptures, sometimes limbless or member-less, erected in gardens and buildings to be admired by all. In Aura Rosenberg’s second solo exhibition with Martos Gallery, and her first presentation at our Chinatown location, these statues share a bit more with the viewer than learned histories or myths.
For Statues Also Fall In Love, Rosenberg presents ten large lenticular images and a constellation of marble stones. The lenticular prints are layered with two images: First, photographs of marble statues that were taken by Rosenberg in gardens and museums in New York and Berlin; Second, pornographic images of bodies found in the same pose or gesture as the statues. Through a dance with the viewer, the flesh is made out of stone and stone out of flesh, changing and challenging the prevailing gaze.
The untitled constellation of stones on the floor are a mix of marble and cutouts of statues. Continuing themes from Rosenberg’s Dialectical Porn Rocks, this new sculpture is a familiar conversation between nature and the presumed naturalness of sex.
Rosenberg has continued to challenge notions of transgression, sexuality and repression. Her work considers how certain actions produce images and ideas that can all at once seem to lose part of their idiosyncratic expression and yet remain frozen, frozen in both time and place.
Aura Rosenberg (b. 1949, New York, NY) received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1971, and received an MA from Hunter College in 1974. She currently lives and works in New York and Berlin.
Select exhibitions include: “Statues Also Fall in Love”, Martos Gallery, New York, NY (2019); “Angel of History”, Studio Teatr Galeria, Warsaw, Poland (2017); “Head Shots (1991-1996)”, JOAN, Los Angeles, CA (2016); “Who Am I? What Am I? Where Am I?”, Meliksetian Briggs Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2014); “Ekstase”, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany (2019); and “The Golden Age“, Sassa Trülzsch, Berlin, Germany (2011).
Rosenberg’s works are included in the permanent collections of Bard College, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL; Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; Cincinnati Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, Kansas City, MO; Lhoist Collection, Brussels, Belgium; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
