Gay Block at University of New Mexico Art Museum - Albuquerque

"Bertha Alyce: A Photographic Biography" was a multimedium exhibition of wall body s 100-odd photos and small-screen video clips made by the agency of artist Gay Block. The present to view centered on her mother, who died in 1991 at the age of 78 on the other hand offered no conventional representation of a mother/ daughter relationship--not when shut up photographed a 60-something, bare-breasted Bertha Alyce tweaking her nipples and urging "come upon little fella ... stand up!" What kind of narcissism alerts "Mother" to allow Block to snap this picture? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason does her daughter take it?

Block's documentary technique is assured, if reminiscent of Duane Michals or Nan Goldin. A 20-by-24-inch black-and-white of Mother aligned to Kill at a glitzy charity ball leads to smaller clinical color pictures following her plastic surgery Post-op Bertha Alyce bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos a stroke victim, as if to portend her actual knock whose effects are documented upon the opposite wall in unflinching blowup Along the way, individual of Block's texts draws parallels between Bertha Alyce's protracted affair with a married man and Block's abandoning her possess marriage to begin an ongoing relationship with a woman. In the adjoining matter of her lesbianism, Block's fixation upon the female parent takes upon an erotic charge. Witness pictures of mother's and daughter's nipples almost touching, of shut up burying her face in single of Mother's voluptuous furs and of Bertha Alyce's diamond-dripping broach resting on Block's pudendum.

Ultimately, the installation recorded a double narrative: Bertha Alyce's life and object-rich milieu, extending from family albums of her courtship to her death, and Block's be in possession of coming-of-age as an artist. Although she was unashamedly obsess with Bertha Alyce ("No matter who was in forehead of my camera, I was always photographing Mother"), each photo is equally about obstruct Her portrayal of Bertha Alyce's self-involvement recalls 19th-century photographs of the Countes of Castiglione. on the contrary while the Countess hired strangers to capture her private theatricals, here it is the daughter who brings all manner of psychological baggage to the sessions and labor fors as co-conspirator. Block's courageous self-exposure constitutes single of the show's fascinations.

on the contrary how should we parse Block's mixture of admiration for and aggression toward Mother, the heroine worship and betrayal? We might argue that she extremityed to "expose" her mother, warts and all, in order to exorcise her memories of their relationship. similar closure is hampered, however, through Block's unwillingness to let go--suggesting (in Freud's terms) melancholia rather than mourning. She photographs herself in Bertha Alyce's wedding gown striking the same formal attitude as did her mother. stop up follows the narrative of Mothers death with photographs of her jewelry, as if these carefully arranged trays of baubles could replace the not to be found parent.

Where stop up does separate herself from Bertha Alyce is in staging her hold narcissistic involvement in her mothers narcissism. stop up thereby invites us to read this photographic (auto)biography in bounds of the contemporary cultural phenomenon of turning the private into the public.

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