Portia Munson Examines the Impact of Mass Production on the Formation of Identity at P·P·O·W
Widewalls
July 19, 2022
Balasz Takac
The thin line between pilling, hoarding, and arranging a personal assembly of objects has led different individuals to form collections full of memorabilia that reflects their vision of the world. Art history recognized cabinets of curiosities as a pioneering form of collecting. It has informed museology as a legitimate discipline and inspired numerous artists to appropriate this particular strategy.
Saturated with objects but also different colors and emotions, the installations by American artist Portia Munson reflect her interest in systems and structured formations. For several decades already, she has been combining sculpture, installation, painting, and digital photography, to explore consumerism from the feminist and environmentalist lens.
The current exhibition Bound Angel at P·P·O·W brings Munson's new works. The visitors have a unique chance to experience the latest trajectory of the artist’s expressions in a well-put installment that takes over the entire space of the New York-based venue.
Identity Matters
By combing objects found across second-hand stores, yard sales, and flea markets, Portia Munson creates impeccably arranged installations that trespass the boundaries of sculpture and object art. All the while she is examining the ways mass production influences the construction of identity in terms of gender equality and the ongoing ecological crisis.
The exhibition's centerpiece is the Pink Project Table, initially shown in Marcia Tucker’s Bad Girls show at the New Museum in 1994; this work consists of discarded objects, including figurines of small girls, classical and pornographic nudes, Virgin Mary, candle holders, snow globes, soap dispensers, etc. Reminiscent of wedding aesthetics, the entire work forms the shape of a faceless bride.
Her new series, Serving Trays, is comprised of ceramic and glass figurines tied up with string and assembled on silver platters. Both this piece and Bound Angel function as sacrificial martyrs that reflect the artist’s articulation of the commodity goods in the contemporary moment.
Another sculptural work in the shape of a female body is Today Will Be Awesome, which Munson created this year; it features the top half of a headless pink mannequin, with arms folded to the hip wearing pink elbow pads, a back-pack, a large ribbon with the word feminist printed on it, and a pink plastic pearl necklace. The piece reaffirms confidence, positivity, and success – messages sent to young women by mass media to unravel daily violence and victimization projected upon them.
In addition to the new sculptures, the installament includes the artist’s still-life meditations related to individual objects found within her expansive sculptural works.
All the works included in Bound Angel function as the mentioned cabinet of rarities, made to archive the ways women’s bodies and emotions are surveillance and manipulated. The exhibition underlines overtly sexist and repressive systems that affirm harmful societal processes and eventually destroy the environment.
The exhibition Portia Munson: Bound Angel will be on view at P·P·O·W in New York until August 19th, 2022.
