Last Thursday, March 17th, I had the pleasure of seeing Emily Rooney’s MFA photography thesis exhibition in Temple Gallery. Circumstances allowed for Emily to have use of all three spaces inside the gallery, and she used this opportunity to its fullest potential with a sparse but extremely specific exhibition incorporating a variety of media.
The gallery’s initial space was populated with groupings of objects, some abstract and some representational, and three black and white photographs with ample space around them on the walls. In the next gallery space, there were only two objects: a flag with a yin-yang symbol hung on the wall by one corner, and a rectangular wood frame with a marble tile top and an organically formed, brown plaster concave in the middle of the tile. The final space was reserved only for a video projection. In the video, viewers would hear a song with dramatically downshifted pitch while seeing a stop motion animation that features an Asian man’s face, a black woman and a white woman dancing and kissing, and a black figure skater. In addition to having its own room, the song from the video could be heard throughout the gallery during the entire exhibition experience before the video was viewed.
Instead of being isolated from each other, the arrangements of works in each room correspond to each other through particular themes and features. First, there is the recurring idea of images and objects in black and white. The few photographs are developed in black and white, and one also shows a black woman and a white woman beside each other. Objects arranged on the floor of the first room also share this theme, like a black pair of ceramic shoes on a white pillow. The viewer is greeted with the yin-yang flag in the next room, possibly one of the most iconic symbols illustrating black and white of all time, and the marble top on the wood structure contains a variety of greys. A piece of drawing paper laid on the marble with a few strokes of charcoal on it continues the theme, and makes viewers very curious as to whether it is part of the exhibition or a forgotten drawing homework assignment. While we enjoy the objects, we constantly hear the extremely low pitch and minimal structure of the song, reflecting the stark and minimal nature of black and whites images and objects. The women in the video further correspond to the ideas of black and white in terms of race.
Walking back out to the marble-topped structure from the last room, it is apparent that the deep pitch of the song corresponds to the shape of the concave amidst the marble tiles. The indistinguishable syllables formed by the pitch-shifted voice allude to the lumpy, brown organic texture in the concave, as does the simple structure of vocals and piano. Observing the concave from the entrance of the last room, it is also worth nothing that the shape of the concave projects down visibly below the marble surface inside the wooden frame. The resulting lump is wrapped in white cloth and has a mysterious, visceral weight to it. On the wall opposite the structure, the flag hanging from one corner also has this quality of weight and organic shape. Revisiting the first gallery room again on the way out, we see that the abstract wood framework forms in a row on the floor correspond to the basic structure of the song, of black and white, and of the marble-topped structure in the other room. We also realize that a photo of a large marble slab being taken from a quarry was giving a hint about what kind of materials and surfaces to expect later.
Emily mentions in her MFA thesis statement, which is on the Tyler exhibitions website, that she deals with the juxtaposition of minimalism and obvious content, and the subversion of conventionally gendered objects or images to talk about queer culture and gender issues through “queered formalism.” This process allows her to challenge the way symbols have become gendered, and to explore a wider variety of creative possibilities regarding the way minimalism, formalism, and heavy content work together. I think she has achieved these goals through the themes in her exhibition, particularly through juxtaposition of stark black and white contrasts, structural outlines, and organic forms. The huge variety of media she employs deepens the effectiveness of this juxtaposition by making viewers see and hear relationships between these elements.
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