Josephine Pryde: lapses in Thinking By the person i Am
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA
May 5–August 1, 2015
Production | Exhibition Grant
In her first institutional solo exhibition in the United States, Berlin and London-based artist Josephine Pryde presented a new body of commissioned work, consisting of a large-scale interactive sculpture and a series of photographs. Known primarily for her photographic work, Pryde has become a major figure in the recuperation of photography as a key critical discipline in the field of contemporary art. Pryde has developed a singular style of image-making that responds to methods and ideas from, amongst other sources, advertising, fashion, and portrait photography. For this exhibition, a suite of photographs depicting hands touching or handing various objects and surfaces was shown alongside a fully functioning ride-on model train.
Pryde’s new photography focuses on women’s hands – touching their own bodies or technological devices, for example – and are manicured in solid, pastel colors. The tight composition, which focuses on the hands and gestures versus the model’s face, references classic feminist critiques of body language and human expression. The photographic installation is juxtaposed with the ride-on electric train that interweaves the gallery spaces, which uses the concept of exchange between Pryde’s home in Berlin and the context of San Francisco as a point of departure.
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Images: Josephine Pryde, lapses in Thinking By the person i Am, 2015, installation view at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco. Courtesy of CCA Wattis Institute. Photos by Johnna Arnold.
