SHIRLEY KLINGHOFFER: Secret Garden, Fertile GroundThrough the Flower February 19 – May 30, 2011

Secret Garden, Fertile GroundShirley Klinghoffer creates a world in which flowers blossom with vulval impressions, cast-rubber nipples bubble up from a pink

half-orb, and a woman’s skirt mutates into a giant black “daisy” whose forbidden fruit is protected by barbed wire. The trappings

of womanhood—whether anatomical, fashion-based, or commercial—are everywhere metamorphosed in this secret garden, a

fertile feminist paradise.

The dozen artworks shown here are a small survey of Shirley Klinghoffer’s career from the past fifteen years. They demonstrate the

artist’s quick wit and persistent optimism, as well as a sense of fantasy worthy of children’s literature. Klinghoffer likes to say she

celebrates the diversity of women. She also has, throughout her career, fleshed out her concerns about contemporary society

and women’s place within it. She has cast the anatomical uniqueness of women and poked fun at gender stereotypes. She has

exposed the dirty little secrets and intimate details that polite society would just as soon sweep under the rug and she has gath-

ered women during wartime into a modified “stitch-and-bitch” sisterhood to make an enormous knitted cozy for a Humvee.

False measures of femininity appear here, whether Barbie or Venus. Venus Revisited presents 34 miniature “reproductions” of the

famed ancient Greek sculpture Venus de Milo, each boasting a different generational ideal of a woman’s physique. The ques-

tion raised is, if Venus is the gold standard of femininity and she is a moving target, how can a mere mortal ever measure up?

Perhaps, Klinghoffer seems to reply, with the three-inch heels that are her most recent leitmotif. Her high-heeled-shoe sculptures

demonstrate the artist’s strategy of raising awareness through either laughter or tears—by whatever means necessary. They soar

brazenly on a skateboard in A Fine Balance, an appreciation perhaps of women who perform a daily balancing act—and look

good doing so. Yet in the next breath, with the sculpture Paid, Klinghoffer reminds us that those symbols of status and femininity

are part of the uniform of oppression for some, namely sex workers.

Shirley Klinghoffer uses sculpture as a vehicle not only to celebrate diversity but to censure inequities. Hers is an approach that

insists that art open the gate of the secret garden and reveal the beauty and the beast within. For, as we know from Eden, even

the most well-kept garden has its serpents. - Laura Addison

Shirley Klinghoffer, Paid, 2010, used women’s shoes, French antique iron crib, slumped glass, steel, 41 x 44 x 24 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, Secret Garden, 2010, vintage skirt, unique tinted cast rubber, found rusty barbed wire, 45 inch diameter x 11 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, Doormat, 1996, cast black rubber, 2 x 27 x 17 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, Intimate Sphere, 2007, resin, fiberglass, 19 inch diameter x 8 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, Venus Revisited, 50s-90s, 1996, cast stone, aluminum, 70 x 48 x 5 inches

My artwork is very personal. Often I use the hu-

man body, or body parts, to convey an idea.

I have consistently explored the use of a mul-

tiplicity of forms with a variety of materials,

including tinted rubber, glass, wax, plaster and

resins.

Working with the Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trau-

ma Treatment Center [now Solace] for over

10 years, I have been an advocate against

violence and aggression, and have promoted

pride and strength for women. Recently I have

enhanced and created visuals for an educa-

tional program raising awareness of “Human

trafficking” in New Mexico.

This said my art runs parallel with my life.

Shirley Klinghoffer

Shirley Klinghoffer, Cumulus, 2007, wax, vintage handkerchief on linen, 20 x 20 x 2 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, A Fine Balance: Heels on Wheels, 2010, collected high-heel shoes, pintail longboard skateboard, steel, 7 x 43 x 11 inches

Shirley Klinghoffer, Rock-Her, 2010, restored vintage rocking chair, rubber, fabric, wood, motor, 44 x 19 x 32 inches

Love Armor, 2007-2008, 15’ x 7.5’ x 6’The Love Armor Project is a collaborative project envisioned by Shirley Klinghoffer, facilitated by Shirley Klinghoffer and Sarah Hewitt, with the participation of over seventy artists around the country.

Shirley Klinghoffer, She Cradle, 2006, antique wood, rubber vulval castings, fabric, 10 x 18 x 13 inches

Through the Flower www.throughthef lower.org

Shirley Klinghoffer, Iris, bronze, 23 x 5 ½ x 3 ½ inches

Front Cover: Shirley Klinghoffer, Code Pink, 2004, tinted cast rubber, 11 ½ x 30 x 7 inches