January 7 – February 20, 2011
Cynthia Greig has shown her photographs nationally and internationally in numerous solo exhibitions most recently at the Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam, DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles, and the UNO Art Space, Stuttgart. Her work is represented in major collections including the George Eastman House International Center for Photography, Rochester, NY; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Coleçao Foto Arte/Arte 21, Brasilia. This is her first solo project in Michigan and spans two decades of work.
A conceptual artist, Greig uses the authority of photography to challenge conventions of image making about gender, identity and truth. Whether exploring nineteenth century mores as a reflection of our own conformity, or testing the limits of appropriation, ideology, or respectability, her work is often embedded in autobiography or its fictional antithesis. Her provocative photographs demonstrate the undermining eye of her underlying antiauthoritarianism, which is inherent in all her work.
Greig’s artistic practice divides her interests into discrete bodies of work. She fuses conventions and anticonventions into a revealing and intriguing view of how both can be subverted and manipulated to change attitudes, raise questions about the truth of an image, and challenge assumptions about what is real, what is desirable, and what is false.
This exhibition reprises New Eden: The Life and Work of Isabelle Raymond (1993-present) and includes an installation/reconstruction of a 19th century room containing some of Isabelle Raymond’s photographs. Recent bodies of work represented in this survey exhibition include: Likeness of Being, Nature Morte, and Growth Gravity.
Curated by Dick Goody. Full-color catalogue available.
