UNCANNY exhibition opens at Coastal Carolina University
Based on Sigmund Freud's 1919 essay "The Uncanny," the exhibit explores the manifestation of Freud's ideas in the work of four sculptors: Lasse Antonsen, Cal Lane, Jen Raimondi and Susannah Strong. Generally speaking, Freud's definition of the uncanny is the uneasy feeling one experiences when something familiar becomes strange.
The exhibit and opening reception are free and open to the public. The gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit is curated by Cynthia Farnell, director of the Welch Gallery at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Lasse Antonsen's work is concerned with the re-contextualization of objects as a way to playfully reconsider their meanings and associations. As Antonsen deploys regiments of whole and fragmented animal bodies to uncanny effect, so does Jen Raimondi in her human skeletal fragments cast in polyester resin, sprouting hair and woodland fungi. Raimondi's work has always been about the common experience of embodiment.
The uncanny in the work of both Susannah Strong and Cal Lane is derived, in part, from the unexpected juxtapositions of ordinary objects.
The forces that drive Strong's work have to do with the ways in which we form our individual and collective conceptions of identity. Strong grafts together objects, their meanings and metaphors to almost magical effect as a way to represent the complex processes of individuation and self-identification.
Where Strong stitches together found objects and their meanings, Cal Lane cuts into them. Her homely objects are useful, hidden from view in basements and sheds, all but forgotten until she reminds us of their existence by her alterations. She pierces their cold metal surfaces with delicate networks of lace and filigree, an uncanny juxtaposition of feminine and masculine elements subverts our fixed expectations of form and content.
For more information, contact Rachel Harris-Beck at Rharris@coastal.edu and 843-349-6454.