Jess Perlitz – Being Carrier Bag
September 3–October 2
Exhibition Reception: TBD
THE ANDERSON and VCUarts are pleased to present Being Carrier Bag, an exhibition of new works by artist Jess Perlitz. Drawing on Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1986 essay, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” Perlitz reimagines the body as a landscape of uncertain meaning – offering it up as a zone of interpretation, invention, contradiction and winking suggestion. Perlitz’ playful but inert objects are haunted by the impulses and agencies of the human bodies for which they stand: “They are containers; monuments of our shortfalls and puppets of our hunger, fear, and desire.” Perlitz continues: “In a variety of ways, the sculptures in this exhibition collapse body and landscape….space and place are not fixed or innate but rather created and re-created through our actions. Landscape is produced….the body, similarly, [is] produced by, and understood through, the world we’ve made.”
The exhibition opens to the public Friday, Sept. 3, 12:00pm, and is on view through Oct. 2. A lecture and public reception will be held, date and time TBD.
ARTIST BIO
Jess Perlitz is an artist who creates sculptures, performances and public art. Born in Toronto, Canada, she is a graduate of Bard College, received an MFA from Tyler School of Art, and clown training from the Manitoulin Center for Creation and Performance. Perlitz is currently based in Portland, Oregon where she is Associate Professor and Head of Sculpture at Lewis & Clark College. She is the co-leader of Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project. She was named a 2019 Hallie Ford Fellow, has won the Joan Shipley award, and received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has appeared in playgrounds, fields, galleries, and museums, including the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Socrates Sculpture Park in NY, Cambridge Galleries in Canada, De Fabriek in The Netherlands, and aboard the Arctic Circle Residency. Her project, Chorus, is currently installed at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA as part of the museum’s ongoing artists installation series.