Black Square Gallery opening of Shonagh Adelman’s solo show, Disorderly Conduct.
September 13, 2012 from 6 to 9PM
Black Square Gallery
Wynwood, 2248 NW 1st Place
(corner of NW 23rd St and NW 1st Place),
Miami, FL 33127.
www.blacksquaregallery.com

On public view:  From September 8 to October 9, 2012

Adelman’s most recent exhibition at Black Square Gallery renders a cast of characters out of place and time. Unlikely pairings of figure and location converge through the medium of meticulously crafted 4mm glass and acrylic crystals on canvas. The title of the exhibition takes its inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s book, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” about a fantastical world in which disorderly conduct is the norm. Midway through Alice’s adventures, the Duchess advises her, “[n]ever imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”

The first of Adelman’s series, Beast and the Booty, conjures familiar archetypes of beauty and monstrosity, and reflects them back onto the eye of the beholder, both figuratively and literally, as light refracts off the glass surface and into the viewer’s eye. Her second series, The Last Queen, depicts Marie Antoinette in the apocalyptic landscape of post-Katrina New Orleans, casting the last Queen of France in a context as unlikely as a Twilight Zone portal. Shrouding the scene in the glittery hue of crystals amplifies the incongruity. The title series, Disorderly Conduct, occupies the opulent interiors of the Palace of Versailles and the Parisian opera house, "Palais Garnier." Designed in part to facilitate the king’s attempt to consolidate power, Versailles’ resplendent chambers, festooned with silk curtains, crystal chandeliers and ornate furnishings, are imbued with power and prestige. Marie Antoinette, the last Queen to inhabit the “Grand apartment of the Queen” before the monarchy was deposed, became inextricably associated with the anecdote "Let them eat cake," a phrase that invoked the callousness of unenlightened privilege. Versailles similarly became symbolic of the exploitative excesses of absolute rule. The Palace, which was the repository for confiscated items of artistic and intellectual merit dedicated to housing the “glories of France”, and now a closely monitored museum, is an unlikely backdrop for marauding madams, merry minstrels, bicycling babes and kissing cops. To paraphrase Alice’s realization in chapter one, however, very few things are indeed impossible.

The collateral association between visual pleasure and political power in Disorderly Conduct is amplified by the use of the crystal medium. Luminosity and texture invoke a hyper-awareness of visual seduction while the humorous juxtaposition of figure and setting imparts a theatrical bent to the disorderly conduct.

Adelman has exhibited widely at distinguished institutions and galleries, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Aldrich Museum, Linda Kirkland Gallery and Fuller Museum, among others. Her work also has been featured in art publications such as Art in America, Artforum, Flash Art, Bomb Magazine and Parachute.