Cul-de-Sacs

Ida Applebroog

Jan 10 – Feb 14, 1986

Ida Applebroog

Two Women IV, 1985

Description


In an exhibition of new paintings opening Saturday, January 11th at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Ida Applebroog focuses upon feelings of entrapment – CUL-DE-SACS – situations from which there is no escape.

Caught in these blind alleys, men and women, pictured in comforting portrayals of everyday life, face the imminence of growing old, of nuclear annihilation. Applebroog layers these images and scenes so that the story lines fade from one time zone into another. Past, present and future are merged, revealing worlds within worlds. On the surface, things still look alright; but dialogue fragments of "I've chosen cyanide", "It's nice to meet a liberal",' "God?s white, too", "Hurry up and die" punctuate the subterranean feelings of the 80's.

In her series "Mirror Images", Applebroog rescues and recycles discarded art objects of our culture: paint-by-number works and Senior Center art class projects. By incorporating them into her work, they become reclaimed and eulogized. Her "Window Pieces" capture the viewer's almost prurient interest in the intimate actions of others. The partially raised shades conceal, even as they reveal, and let us enter the scene, even as they keep us out. In Applebroog's "Two Women" series, using her well-known gallows humor, the tradition of the provocative female is re-mapped into the metamorphoses of aging. Life is not art.

Ida Applebroog has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe, including individual exhibitions at the Chrysler Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Rotterdam Arts Foundation. Her work was also included in "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture" at the Museum of Modern Art. This is her fourth solo exhibition at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

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Ida Applebroog

Mercer Street, 1985

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Ida Applebroog

Mercer Street, 1985

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Ida Applebroog

Peel Me Like a Grape, 1985

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Ida Applebroog

Two Women IV, 1985

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Ida Applebroog

Pull Down the Shade, 1985

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Ida Applebroog

Gates Place, 1985