Gallery Kayafas
450 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
Exhibition: New Work by Amy Monntali
Prepare a one page analytical review of the exhibition: New Work by Amy Monntali (note: your review is not to be a description of the work on display but a thoughtful analysis of the work experienced).
Due class three (09.24.08)
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Caitlyn Doolin
Gallery Kayafas
Amy Montali, New Work
When I walk into a gallery, I usually try to find the artist statement first. I read it twice, so I can understand it. I then move onto the art that is being displayed in the gallery. I did just this while attending Amy Montali’s photography show at Gallery Kayafas, in Boston’s South End.
While reading her statement for the second time, I realized that it’s very vague, in relation to the photography that was hanging. I felt like it didn’t make sense. For example, the first sentence of her artist statement is, “I am concerned with cleanliness and the desire of absolution.” Well, I don’t understand, why would she be concerned with the desire of absolution when absolution means a release from desire or obligation? How can you be concerned with the desire to be released from desire or an obligation? Then she went on to talk about her work, and how it enters the realms of longing, transgression, guilt, and redemption. However, when I look at her work, all I see are girls who are sad, depressed, and are conveying a very sexual feeling. Maybe the girls were longing for new lives, or guilt for something they did in their life? The end of her statement talks about seeking salvation, but when I think about salvation, I think of being saved from doing something wrong. I felt as though the girls in Montali’s images didn’t seem to need saving at all. How am I supposed to feel their longing in her images? To me, if the girls needed salvation, the images would seem more heavenly or be darker.
As I looked at Montali’s work, I noticed that all the images (but one) were taken from the perspective of someone spying on them. I felt the camera was looking at the women during intimate moments in their lives. The images feel like they are private moments or performances from the girls. It seemed the girls moments were being taken from them, unknowingly. The images, however, have to be staged since Montali uses a large format camera. I don’t see a way for them not to be, really. The only image that completely stuck out to me was the only one with a face showing, Confession. This image had so much power behind it. It was showing guilt, vulnerableness, and longing. It was presenting some of the ideas that were established in the artist statement. I could feel her wanting something more and needing to change herself. But her face was being shown in the image but she was still not looking into the camera, like she was ashamed of herself.
The titles that were given to the images were interesting, but I felt some didn’t connect, like Slip, Mend, Champ, September, Confidence, Remedy, and Holiday. I couldn’t make the connection between the image and the text that accompanied them when observing her images. For instance, in Slip, we see a girl sitting on a fence in a sunflower garden wearing rainbow striped underwear. And Champion, a women in nude sitting on a broken chair holding a dead bumble bee with a hornet on the ground near the window. Was the women the champion in the battle between herself and the bee? The only image that made sense to me was Stain, in which a women is vigorously trying to rub a stain out of her black dress. However, I am happy she titled her images at all, because she could have just titled them “untitled #2363,” which is pointless.
Amy Montali’s photographs would have been more appealing to me if her statement was cohesive with her images. I was drawn to the color, perspective and depth of field in her imagery. I guess it was ruined by the text. I couldn’t fully appreciate Amy Montali’s work because her meta-narrative was too vague for me to even begin to comprehend.
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