Susan Silas at the CB1 Gallery

CB1 Gallery is pleased to announce our third solo exhibition with New York artist Susan Silas. In this exhibition, titled the self-portrait sessions, Ms. Silas will present photographs, bronze and beeswax sculptures and a video work. The exhibition will open on June, 4th, 2016 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and runs through July 16th, 2016.

The works in the self-portrait sessions began as an exploration of privacy and what Ms. Silas refers to as self-intimacy, meaning the way in which we are different alone with ourselves than we are with others. At a time when privacy is disappearing and we are under constant surveillance both in the public realm and in our homes and on our computers, our notion of what privacy means is undergoing serious questioning and change. In these images, the artist places herself in front of a large mirror, and returns her own gaze. The reference to Lacan’s mirror stage is obvious and yet the degree to which our self is constituted through our own self-reflexive gaze vs. the gaze that is cast on us by the outside world is deeply intermeshed and impossible to tease apart. At the same time, body integrity and the boundary between inside and outside seem pretty basic. But as we submit to myriad platforms in which we voluntarily hand over information about ourselves or simply photograph ourselves and share these images ad infinitum, the assumption that privacy is sacrosanct and that interiority is both vital and indispensable no longer seem to be universally shared values. Hence the notion that artificial intelligence can replace man, and may in fact. In Silas’s photographs there are multiple reflections but the mirror has disappeared from view, creating a liminal space or ambiguity, about which space is “real” and which is a reflection. Over time, the images themselves suggested content to the artist that was not initially conscious; the examination of the aging female face and body.

Wed – Sat, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sun, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.
or by appointment