NANCY DAVIDSON
source: jeremyriad
You know you want to touch the busty balloons! It’s OK; you’re supposed to.
You’re complicit in this seduction: you laugh at the enormous breasts, the big butt, and suddenly it’s like, “Oh my God, what am I laughing at, why is this sexual thing making me so uncomfortable?” There’s a manipulation in this. There’s also my own ambivalence: I embrace being a woman but also deal with the social structure of our culture and the various ways in which women are portrayed and expected to be. I’m interested in the subversive potential of humor. It catches you from behind: “What am I laughing at? Why am I finding this pleasurable? Is this offensive?”
“Why does that floor mop have such a shapely Smurf butt?”
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source: nancydavidson
Nancy Davidson is a New York based artist who makes sculptures, installations, photographs and videos. Davidson grew up in Chicago and received her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1975 where she began her professional career. In 1979 Davidson moved to New York City. Her awards and fellowships include a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Anonymous Was a Woman Award, the Pollock-Krasner Award. In 2005 Creative Capital Foundation funded Davidson’s proposal to place enormous inflatable cowgirls in public spaces. Her project Dustup was exhibited at Betty Cuningham Gallery (New York) in September 2012. In October 2013 The Boca Museum of Art (FL) will exhibit Dustup with other works including videos, sculptures and photographs. Davidson’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Robert Miller Gallery (New York), Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH) and Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA). The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum and Frieze are among the publications that have reviewed her work.