A common belief is held that within an artist’s interpretation of a sitter resides some vestige of his or her own identity. Even if evidence of this is in the choice of subject, the style in which it is depicted, or quite literally the fingerprints that bear the construction of the object itself, at least partial meaning resides in its proximity. Artists’ portraits tellingly identify the complex relationship between representation and interpretation and the manner in which the two are inextricably linked.

In FAMILIAR: Portraits of Proximity, eight artists each negotiate the intersections of the self, their subject, and the viewer. This exhibition takes a closer look at what it means to be familiar as a quality or state of being relative, relevant, or relational to the artist and his or her subject.

psychedelic cascades of pixels. This deconstructive glitch effect threatens to break apart the image of the couple, serving to remind us that identity relationships remain a constantly shifting proposition.

November 7, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Some of the narratives in FAMILIAR include documentation of the social sphere as a place where concepts of identity and self-awareness are negotiated. An example of this may be seen in French-born, New York-based artist Antoine Catala’s Couple in the Garden. A 13-minute video loop with sound accompaniment by Ensemble/Olivier Alary deconstructs the physical and spatial surroundings of his subject, their location, and finally their individual identities. Catala achieves this effect through a process of data compression known as datamoshing, a manipulation of video footage that causes images to fall apart into

SELF REFLECTION

Tennessee-based artist Jessica Wohl also responds to the complexities of identity in the social sphere as it extends into family life with her recent series of ink on paper drawings Suburbia 1-4. In these drawings Wohl offers the viewer telling group portraits of suburban families as seen through the façade of domestic architecture, smiles, swimming pools, and coveted corner lots. Throughout these images Wohl gives humorous clues to a diverse set of “family values” that serve to deconstruct the domestic environment. Together, these images question the influence of social structure and the family unit upon perceptions of individuality.

Offering a different though no less intimate view of family portraiture is Kansas City-based photographer Gloria Baker Feinstein. Feinstein articulates the peculiarities of genetics as a means of establishing individual identity in Space Between, her ongoing series documenting identical

ANTOINE CATALA

JESSICA WOHL

GLORIA BAKER FEINSTEIN

Image above: Antoine Catala, Couple in the Garden (2008), video, 13:00 minute loop with music by Ensemble / Olivier Alary. (Image stills courtesy the artist.)

Image above: Jessica Wohl, Suburbia 4 (2009), ink on paper, 22x30” framed. (Image courtesy the artist.)

twins. In five images from this series, we meet Angie and Carrie, Lloyd and Floyd, David and Isaac, Lara and Frida, and Marliss and Marlo, all who serve as mirror images of their respective siblings. At once uncanny, humorous, and empathic, Feinstein’s double portraits capture the powerful unspoken bond that exists within each of these complex relationships.

At the edge of the social sphere, photographer Greg Stimac peers into domestic cultural life from a nomadic perspective. Although he resides in Chicago, Stimac spends most of his time driving the highways and byways of America documenting ritualized human social activities, finding poetic and existential significance in simple phenomena. In FAMILIAR, Stimac offers a meditation on

the tenuousness of reality through a conspicuous absence of the human form. In Red Flannel, a shirt hangs from a tree branch in an open field, in I-25 Mexico, a decorative roadside memorial eulogizes a loss on the open road, and in Untitled Campfire (Interstate 55), a humble campfire glows beneath a highway overpass. Together, these images elicit a range of emotions from vulnerability and loss to reverence, liberation, and the adventure of wandering free from life’s constraints.

Perhaps one of the most defining aspects of portraiture in contemporary art is the self-awareness of the artist as a subject within his or her own work. Kansas City-based artist Adolfo Martinez’ autobiographical portraits engage the viewer to connect with both him and his work at a level of singular intimacy. In Megalomaniacal, Martinez illustrates a fantasy of commanding all the things he loved as a child. In the artist’s mixed media drawing, Checkers, we see a childhood version of the artist seated at a table with his aged father playing a game of checkers. At the bottom of the image a paragraph narrates the artist’s attempt to play checkers with a father in the advancing stages of dementia. In Martinez’ third painting, My Dad’s Chair, we see an armchair draped with his father’s favorite hat in front of palm trees symbolizing his armed service in the Philippines. The chair’s hovering emptiness serves as a poignant metaphor for one person’s ongoing struggle to retain his identity.

It remains a challenge to move through our lives with any sense of objectivity regarding our place in the world. As hard as we may try, we are reminded of the subjective self. Kansas City-based artist Maryellen Munger revels in such an issue with her straightforward portrait sculptures. In Self Portrait I, Mr. Wonderful, and Nefertiti’s New Hat, the artist depicts figures in a manner that is both honest and self-evident. In her matter-of-fact approach we see clear evidence of the artist’s hand within each sculpture’s mottled clay surface and brushy applications of paint. Munger’s sculptures become portraits of humor, honesty, awkwardness, and nostalgia.

GREG STIMAC

ADOLFO MARTINEZ

MARYELLEN MUNGER

Image to the left: Gloria Baker Feinstein, Carrie and Angie (2005), black and white photograph, ed.2 of 25, 25x25” framed. (Image courtesy the artist.)

Image to the left: Greg Stimac, Red Flannel (2008), archival pigment print, ed.1, 40x51.5”. (Courtesy the artist and Andrew Rafacz Gallery; image courtesy the artist.)

In an age of globalism, cultures comingle in ways that are unprecedented. In the photographs of Los Angeles-based artist Norman Jacobson we see an individual who has lived his life globally by traveling to over 55 countries to document humanity around the world. In a sequence of twelve photographic portraits from the artist’s recent book, Faces of the World, Jacobson offers us an up-close-and-personal introduction to each of his subjects from India, England, Lithuania, China, Poland, America, Vietnam, Burma, and numerous other locations. Through these images, Jacobson brings the remote and foreign into our proximity.

One could argue that hundreds if not thousands of surreptitious portraits of us are being captured among various surveillance zones each day, documenting fragmented trajectories of our lives. Miki Baird’s recent mixed media photographic works and installations also serve to document these trajectories on long walks the artist takes with her camera. Photographing mostly individuals unknown to her, she deliberately blurs their faces or shoots them from behind to protect their identities. She then prints thousands of photographs, cuts them up, and builds large photo-tapestries and installations that play upon the latent patterning to emerge from such repetition. In each of Baird’s pieces, Swatch…the warp and weft of RedWalker, and Zip…Unzip…altered recollections, these peripheral encounters become the jumping off point for an investigation into optical abstraction, image recognition, and the spatial distribution of steps walked and images captured.

NORMAN JACOBSON

MIKI BAIRD

Image above: Maryellen Munger, Self Portrait I (2010), ceramic, acrylic, 14x13x8”. (Image courtesy E.G. Schempf.)

In life we leave behind traces of our identity that become a composite portrait and an objectification of our existence. Beyond our physical bodies, we may also be defined by what is familiar to us: what we eat, what we wear, where we live, whom we choose to live with, and what we produce. Within the genre of portraiture, artists reinforce this notion. Whether the subject is an aristocrat, a martyr, or the self, over the centuries artists have made a history for themselves through the marks and images they [we] leave behind. Although the sum of FAMILIAR: Portraits of Proximity may set out to examine notions of portraiture as a relationship between artist and sitter or subject, each of us as viewers become the final and lasting component of such a portrait.

Images above from left to right: Norman Jacobson, En Route to Hanoi, Vietnam (1999), archival pigment print, 14x11”; Acrobats, Shanghai, China (2007), archival pigment print, 14x11”; Shepherd, Rajasthan, India (2006), archival pigment print, 14x11”. (Images courtesy the artist.)

Images above from left to right: Miki Baird, Installation view of Tunnel Walker #2 (2009) .25” x .5” and .5” x 1” archival inkjet prints on silk covered felt, 31” x 89” overall; Detail of Tunnel Walker #2 (2009). (Images courtesy E.G. Schempf and the artist.)

Image above: Adolfo Martinez, My Dad’s Chair (2010), airbrush, acrylic, panel, 36x24”. (Courtesy Leopold Gallery; image courtesy E.G. Schempf)

Established in 1991, the purpose of the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art (KCJMCA) is to provide innovative art exhibitions and related programming that engage seniors and diverse audiences from all segments of our community to enrich lives and celebrate our common humanity through art. KCJMCA realizes this goal through a cooperative partnership with Village Shalom, an assisted living facility that houses KCJMCA’s Epsten Gallery, and through partnerships with local, regional, and national institutions that participate in KCJMCA’s Museum Without Walls exhibition program.

PAST PRESIDENTSSaul Kass (Of Blessed Memory)Michael KleinHugh MerrillLarry Meeker

Sybil & Norman Kahn, Founders

DONATE | CONTRIBUTE | JOINKCJMCA is a non-for-profit 501(c)3 and a member of the national Council of American Jewish Museums.

Contributions to KCJMCA are tax deductible and donations may be sent to 5500 West 123rd Street, Overland Park, KS 66209.

KCJMCA membership, volunteering and sponsorship opportunities are always available.

Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary ArtEpsten Gallery | Museum Without Walls

5500 West 123rd Street, Overland Park, KS 66209 Ph: 913.266.8413 | Fx: 913.345.2611

Acknowledgements: Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art would like to thank exhibiting artists Miki Baird, Antoine Catala, Gloria Baker Feinstein, Norman Jacobson, Adolfo Martinez, Maryellen Munger, Greg Stimac, and Jessica Wohl. Additionally, KCJMCA would like to thank the Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL, Black Point Editions, Chicago, IL, The Late Show Gallery, Kansas City, MO, Leopold Gallery, Kansas City, MO, State of the Art Framing, E.G. Schempf, Sherman Titens, and Village Shalom.

This program is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, which believes a great nation deserves great art. KCJMCA also wishes to thank the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, Jewish Heritage Foundation of Greater Kansas City, Bank of America, H&R Block, Francis Family Foundation, the Lighton Foundation, UrbanSuburban Patrons and Artists, and members of the Friends of KCJMCA for their ongoing support of our programs.

BOARD OF DIRECTORSRegina Kort, PresidentSylvia Augustus, Vice PresidentLynn Intrater, Vice PresidentLynn Schweig, SecretaryPeter Beren, TreasurerHerb Adler, HonoraryDick AndersonSherry Cromwell-LacyJacqueline Epsten, HonoraryPeggy KrigelLinda LightonSharon LundJules MoskowitzBarbara SmithPaul SokoloffIrma StarrEllen TaylorSherman TitensJoni WeinerShirley White

STAFFEileen Garry, Executive DirectorMarcus Cain, CuratorAbby Rufkahr, Administrative Assistant

November 7, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Image on cover: Detail of Miki Baird, Swatch…the warp and weft of RedWalker (2010), .25” x .5” archival inkjet prints on cotton backed felt, 42” x 61” overall. (Image courtesy E.G. Schempf.)

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