'LANDMARKS' Exhibition at NJCU

By: Vanessa Velez

Posted: 4/28/09

When trying to view "Landmarks," a mixed-media art show on display at New Jersey City University's Lemmerman Gallery, curated by Jillian Hernandez and featuring the work of Ali Prosch and the GisMo collective (Jessica Gispert and Crystal Molinary), I found it ironic that the doors were locked.

The irony is this: "Landmarks" is a participant in the Feminist Art Project. FAP, aside from being a "a collaborative national initiative celebrating the Feminist Art Movement and the aesthetic, intellectual and political impact of women on the visual arts, art history and art practice, past and present," their mission statement also says, "The Feminist Art Project is a strategic intervention against the ongoing erasure of women from the cultural record." Just as women have been shut out from the cultural record, I was shut out from what I would soon find out would be a fantastically enlightening visual experience.

Eventually being able to enter the gallery, I found myself in an old-fashioned, gothic-styled sunlit room surrounded by extremely vivid photography and a different film playing in every corner. The room was like two worlds colliding to create a womb that radiated femininity, in its purest, most natural existence: women trying to exist naturally in a world which succumbs to outdated views.

Although all of the work was excellently conceived, certain pieces would etch themselves unforgettably into a viewer's mind. One such piece was a film by Ali Prosch entitled "Not My Mama." The sepia-toned film was reminiscent of the silent films of Fritz Lang. A bacchalian-fashioned female wood nymph (the costume also created by Prosch) emerges from a swamp. With spastic, almost orgasmic movements, she begins to frisk and grope the land as she searches for nests of eggs. The eggs, white balloons filled with powder. Upon finding the eggs, she tries to horde them beneath herself only to find them exploding and enveloping her in powder. The creature's outlandish reaction to the destruction of the eggs is supposed to represent a nonconforming, nonjudgmental view towards the dogmas that are usually associated with the nurturing mother.

Another of Prosch's videos was displayed on a TV catty-cornered on the floor of the gallery. Wigs, cheap beads, and torn girdles surrounded the television on the ground in a chaotically deliberate fashion. The video is a film of Prosch herself falling to the ground-whether premeditatedly or not is for the interpretation of the viewer. Each time she falls, she removes a garment until she is eventually left only to her bare skin. According to the show's pamphlet written by Hernandez, "The video...captures the body unraveling as it encounters failure and becomes increasingly exposed."

The photography series by GisMo was shot in Florida's Everglades National Park. One of the more stunning photo series were pictures of women standing phantasmagorically surrounded by a sprawling cloud-filled sky and the vivid natural green of the Everglades. The women are wearing nothing but white reworked girdles fashioned to complement their curves rather than constrict them. Also adorned with elegantly crafted beadwork, the photos create a surreal take on the female form and the female disposition in a world where fashion often fosters insecurity and idealistic beauty creates a pantomime rather than paints of portrait of true femininity.

When asked about her take on the show, Christine Hanna, an 18-year-old NJCU media arts major and gallery attendant, said "This is the first time I've seen women taking charge. I think it's very positive and powerful for women who may not feel comfortable in their own skin."

Featured at the Lemmerman Gallery from March 16 through April 15,"Landmarks" was a wonderful addition to NJCU's Art Department's repertoire and reputation of presenting talented young artists present among the University's student body while also presenting progressive, sharp-minded ideas to the rest of the college's campus community.