Thursday, October 19 – October 20, 2000, 7pm
@Exit Art/The First World
548 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY
Exit Art and SAWCC present a video and performance event, curated by Mariam Ghani (Exit Art), and Chitra Ganesh and Swati Khurana (SAWCC), featuring video screenings from Sonya Shah, Raina Kumra, Swati Khurana, Sheelah Murthy, Prema Murthy, Karla Murthy and Marla Murthy, and performanaces by Marian Yalini Thambynayagam, Achinta Sawhny, Gita Reddy and Sharmila Desai.
What happens when the artist, looking to popular iconography to find the element of her own aesthetic language, does not find any images that resemble her? That artist often turns inward to the surface or substance of the unrepresented body to create new icons.
These videos and performances by SAWCC members take up an imaginative exploration of the culturally coded meanings of the body, which complements the genetics-based exploration of the body’s code featured in Exit Art’s current exhibition, Paradise Now. The eight featured artists have in common a preoccupation with religious and political iconography, as well as sexual and social divisions of society. Their diverse performances and videos explore the inner aspects of these codes of behavior.