ClampArt is pleased to announce "Glass Ceiling," Jill Greenberg's fifth solo show at the gallery. Best known as a daring and experimental portraitist, Greenberg revisits her interest in feminist art for her new series (which was the focus of her senior thesis at the Rhode Island School of Design over twenty years ago). The photographs in this body of work picture female athletes and dancers underwater engaged in a variety of ambiguous and dynamic movements. The women wear colorful bathing suits and high heels in complimentary hues, forcing one to question how and why these models are immersed.
In 2008, Greenberg was commissioned to shoot a commercial fashion shoot with the US Olympic Synchronized Swim Team, which included two setups calling for high heels. The artist was struck by the absurdity of the styling. The swimmers wear stilettos, which are meant to heighten sexuality, but in reality, restrict movement and impose a lack of controL. Greenberg depicts the tension of her models coming to the surface gasping for air while wrestling with the weight of the water as a metaphor for the role women must play in the outside world.
In ClampArt's Project Room, a selection of Greenberg's new portraits of horses will also be on display. The artist's previous images of monkeys and bears proved extremely successful, but she regards horses as her primal subject. As a young girl, Greenberg drew horses, painted them, sculpted them, collected models, read about them, and got to ride them. The photographs reflect the majesty and power of these beasts, in addition to their undeniable sexuality. Fall 2011, Greenberg's book based on the horse images is being published and released by Rizzoli.
Jill Greenberg's fine art has appeared in numerous prestigious publications such as the New Yorker, Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Sun, Time Out New York, and French Photo. Her photographs have been exhibited in a great number of gallery and museum exhibitions all around the world including; Jaski Art Gallery, Amsterdam, Museum Dr. Guisian, Gent, Belgium, acte2galerie, Paris, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, Greenaway Art Gallery, Australia, Chelsea Art Museum, New York City, to name a few. Greenberg's work is also represented in such Permanent Collections as the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; The Kemper Museum, Kansas City, Missouri; National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC; Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, Florida; among others.
Photographs from "Glass Ceiling" will be included in the upcoming "2011 Juried Art Show", at The SoFA Gallery / Grunwald Gallery of Art at The Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, Indiana. Images also will be reproduced in the Summer 2011 issue of Dear Dave Magazine, in addition to an upcoming issue of Arte Al Limite Magazine. One photograph from the series was included in the juried selection, "American Photography 25" in 2009, and another was used for the posters earlier this year for Women's Focus Week at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, where Greenberg was the Keynote Speaker.
