Segalove's presentation was quirky, charming, and right up my alley. Emphasizing in video, audio, and photography, Segalove's work embodies her love for television and her family and attempts to share such seemingly "mundane" interests with the world in a non-critical, informal artistic style. Her work stems from her experience growing up in Southern California near Hollywood, along with the chaos of her college years at UCSB during the Vietnam War and the rise of feminism. These influences weigh heavily on the woman who occasionally still desires to play the role of her twelve year old self or "find her mojo" in silly yet inspiring ways. Despite not receiving much technical training in any particular medium (she majored in sculpture but at the time "majors" weren't a necessity), Segalove shows an extensive love for art and the conceptual process.
Segalove is currently experimenting with collage and claims she is being consumed by the addictive realm of Photoshop, something I can definitely relate to. Are her products advertisements? Are they photographs? Are they even art? She doesn't know. And yet she continues to strive for something great by using any tool around her.
One of the pieces that made me smile was her photo "series" called If you live in Hollywood, you can't help but look like some 8 x 10 glossy. In this series she juxtaposed a film still found in a vintage store next to a photograph she posed of her own parents eating breakfast, only to find to her amusement/horror that they appeared to be practically a replica of the image. A lot of her work seems to be a social commentary on Hollywood commercialism and the specific attitude of the people she grew up with in Beverly Hills. The photograph on the upper left is her attempt at being Barbie, only to come (in her terms) "close, but no cigar".
Ilene Segalove, If you live in Hollywood, you can't help but look like some 8 x 10 glossy, 1976
No comments:
Post a Comment